Dallas Art Fair | 11 - 14 April 2019

Hales at Dallas Art Fair

Sebastiaan Bremer | Frank Bowling | Virginia Jaramillo | Richard Slee | Mary Webb

Booth G3, Dallas, Texas

VIP preview: Thursday 11 April 2019

Public days: 12 – 14 April 2019

Hales is delighted to return for the 2019 edition of the Dallas Art Fair with an international presentation of five artists from the gallery’s roster: Frank Bowling OBE, Virginia Jaramillo, Mary Webb, Sebastiaan Bremer and Richard Slee, whose work explores histories, politics and aesthetics through powerful expressions of colour and material.

Ahead of Frank Bowling’s retrospective at Tate Britain, opening 31 May 2019, Hales debuts recent works by the celebrated British abstract painter at Dallas Art Fair. These spectacular works reflect the artist’s ongoing commitment to abstraction and his ability to continuously challenge the medium. Now in his 80s, Bowling has not ceased to explore the nature and possibilities of paint and still experiments with a diverse selection of formal devices and processes, ranging from stitched canvas frames, to mixed media collage and poured paint. In recent years, Bowling has produced some of the most exciting and challenging compositions of his career, as he continues to orchestrate the emotive potential of colours to communicate a visual experience of uniquely sensuous immediacy.

Born in El Paso, Texas, Virginia Jaramillo has forged a unique voice, exploring painting through extensive experimentation with material, process, and form. The artist’s approach to abstraction has been informed by her early interest in archaeology, science fiction, and cultural mythologies. Exhibited at Dallas Art Fair are works from two series, Foundations (1982) and Sites (2018), which demonstrate her continued experimentation with material and process to pursue her ongoing explorations of human perception of reality. In Sites, Jaramillo focuses on the intricacies of the structures left behind by ancient cultures, the paintings are an in-depth study into the physical and spiritual life of ruins. Hales’ presentation coincides with the inclusion of an important historical work by Virginia Jaramillo in blockbuster touring exhibition, Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which is in its final iteration at the Broad, LA (CA, USA) from 23 March to 1 September (Tate Modern (UK), Crystal Bridges (AR, USA) and Brooklyn Museum (NY, USA)). Jaramillo has also been included in the critically acclaimed We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-85 (Brooklyn Museum (NY, USA) Californian African American Museum (CA, USA), Albright Knox Gallery (NY, USA), ICA Boston (MA, USA)).

Also featured in the presentation, are works from Mary Webb’s debut exhibition with Hales, Reverie, which embody a practice committed to exploring complex interplays of colour through painting and printmaking. Not relying on colour theory texts, Webb has an innate sense for the subtle interaction between colours, striving to avoid drawing the viewer’s eye to one particular area by making the colours work together and exploring diagonal compositions, aiming for there to be an all over quality to the work. Over the past five decades, Webb has mastered the considered relationship between each element of every painting, which as a result creates a serene quality to the works, providing an antidote to the fast-paced world we live in: inviting the viewer to enter a contemplative state.

Dutch-born artist Sebastiaan Bremer delves into personal memories and cultural histories, registering thoughts and feelings in order to engage with universal concerns about family, the fragility of life, and time passing. The photographs - covered in Bremer’s signature meticulously applied dots - are from the ongoing Bloemen series. Flowers, a symbol of Dutch identity, are taken directly from a 1948 book Bloemen, produced in Holland as part of an effort to rebuild the nation’s spirit after the turbulent war years. For Bremer, the Bloemen works are full of hope and melancholia at the same time, as they exemplify the universal appeal and timelessness of flowers while also bringing back personal memories of home.

Richard Slee is deemed to be one of Britain’s most significant and influential ceramic artists and was awarded the Jerwood Applied Arts Prize for his contribution to contemporary ceramics. Merging humour and irony with profound technical ability, Slee challenges the conventions of the studio pottery tradition, transcending its utilitarian roots and paving the way for a new genre of ceramic art. Included in this presentation are works from his latest exhibition with Hales New York, Perfect Pie, Three Hammers (2016) and 60W Maximum (2002). Slee repositions and reframes everyday objects in glazed ceramic, with the artist stating that he makes a tool useless by making it precious.