Art Brussels | Booth 5E-21: Martyn Cross, Haroun Hayward, Hew Locke, Carolee Schneemann

On the occasion of the 2023 edition of Art Brussels, Hales is delighted to present works by Martyn Cross, Haroun Hayward, Hew Locke and Carolee Schneemann. The presentation reflects the programming and vision of the gallery, featuring both historic and contemporary works, as well as pieces made especially for the fair.

 

Martyn Cross (b. 1975, Yate, UK) holds a BA in Fine Art from Bath Spa University. Cross is primarily a painter engaged with 'world making.' The act of painting for him is a means to explore the inner life and strangeness of the ordinary. Each work begins in reality, with recognizable limbs and elements of landscape, which transform into uncanny scenes. The works on view at Art Brussels are important examples of the artist's recent works, where a myriad of inspiration enters subconsciously into the paintings. Reoccurring motifs emerge - billowing clouds, tumbling waterfalls, oversized pointing fingers and bright suns create an immersive world. Familiar and mysterious, quiet and epic, scale and irregularity in proportion puzzles the viewer. Questions remain unanswered and meaning remains a mystery to the artist himself. Cross has exhibited work at many galleries, nationally and internationally, including Hales London; Marianne Boesky, NY; Ratio 3, Los Angeles, CA; OHSH Projects, London; Modern Art, London, UK; Oceans Apart, Manchester; Bath Spa University; Spike Island, Bristol; LIMBO, Margate; Stroud Museum, UK among others. Cross' work is in the collections of the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami and NN Contemporary Art, Northampton, UK. 

 

Haroun Hayward (b. 1983, London) received a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting from University of Brighton and an MA in Fine Art Practice from Goldsmiths University, London. Hayward's paintings are a celebration of hybridity, harmoniously converging art historical and musical references with distinct modes of making. The paintings honour what informs Hayward's personal and artistic narrative - rave culture, abstract expressionism, post war British landscape painting and his mother's textile collection. Hayward explores visually communicating sound, specifically the interconnectedness of repetition in music and pattern in textiles. Repetition and remixing, to borrow from music terminology, are key to the artist's painting process. Made especially for the fair, the painting on view is exemplary of the artist's distinctive set of processes, working primarily in oil, oil stick and pastel, Hayward combines a repetitive mode of making to explore multiple interplays of visual possibility in one united picture plane. Hayward's debut solo exhibition with Hales is currently on view at Hales London. His work is also included in the collections of the Gujral Foundation, Kiran Nadar Collection, Arun Nayar Collection among others. 

 

Hew Locke RA (b. Edinburgh, UK, 1959) spent his formative years (1966-80) in Guyana before returning to the UK to complete an MA in sculpture at the Royal College of Art (1994) and was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2022. Locke explores the languages of colonial and post-colonial power, how different cultures fashion their identities through visual symbols of authority, and how these representations are altered by the passage of time. These explorations have led Locke to a wide range of subject matters, imagery and media, assembling sources across time and space in his deeply layered artworks. The works on view are extraordinary examples of Locke's ongoing fascination with boats, a recurring subject matter which can be traced through his practice. Paying close attention to the particular histories of specific boats, Locke explores the contrast between complex subject matter and sculptural elegance. Exceptionally detailed, these boat sculptures suggest personal and collective allegories of voyages made by explorers, colonialists, migrants, refugees and pirates. Locke's boats speak of both hope and fear, evoking paradoxical notions of displacement and home. Histories and geographies are suggested in the layering of cargo and talismans - highlighting complex subject matter without taking away from the sculptural elegance of each ship. In 2022 Locke was awarded both Tate Britain's Duveen Hall commission and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Facade Commission. In 2019, Locke's comprehensive solo exhibition, Here's the Thing, opened at Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK, which toured to Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, MO, USA and Colby College Museum of Art, Maine, ME, USA. His work is represented in many prestigious collections including Tate Gallery, UK; the Arts Council of England, UK; the Brooklyn Museum, NY, USA; Perez Art Museum Miami, FL, USA; Kunsthalle Bremen, Germany; the British Museum, London, UK amongst many more.

 

Carolee Schneemann (b. 1939, Fox Chase, Pennsylvania - d.2019, New Paltz, NY, USA) received a BA from Bard College, NY and an MFA from the University of Illinois. She held an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts from the California Institute of the Arts and the Maine College of Art. In 2017, Schneemann was awarded the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement at the 57^th Venice Biennale. The works in this presentation are a significant selection of Schneemann's early nude works on paper. Made at a critical period of intellectual and artistic growth, the works demonstrate the importance of the act of drawing-of drawing as action-that would remain constant. These works are the crucial precursor to the work's extension off the page and canvas, to encompass assemblage and performance. Here in the early stages of her life, she is finding 'action,' palette, and the body as subjective experience, which would all come to be synonymous with the artist. In September 2022, Body Politics - the first major survey of Schneemann's work in the UK opened at The Barbican Centre. Schneemann's extensive retrospective Kinetic Painting, opened at Museum Der Moderne in Salzburg (2015) before travelling to the Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main, Germany and MoMA PS1, New York in 2017. Schneemann's first solo exhibition in London, UK, Water Light/Water Needle, took place in 2014 at Hales Gallery. Her work is included in many important collections worldwide including The Whitney Museum of Art, NY; Tate, London, UK; Centre Pompidou, Paris, France; Hamburger Bahnhof Museum, Berlin, Germany; Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Sweden and many more.