日内瓦·费吉斯：抓马派对
2023.4.15—2023.6.4
木木美术馆（798馆）
策展人：齐元琳 邓盈盈
“绘画应是一件乐事，若我无法因它而感到愉悦，那便不会选择它。”
——日内瓦·费吉斯
《恭候》，2020，布面丙烯©
日内瓦·费吉斯，致谢艺术家与阿尔敏·莱希
摄影：Melissa Castro Duarte
我们非常荣幸地宣布木木美术馆（798馆）将迎来爱尔兰艺术家日内瓦·费吉斯（Genieve Figgis）在亚洲的首次美术馆个展“抓马派对”。作为艺术家的中期回顾展，本次展览将全面呈现其职业生涯早期至今的40余幅画作，其中数件绘于2023年的新作将首次与公众见面。
《婚礼》，2022，板上丙烯
© 日内瓦·费吉斯，致谢艺术家与阿尔敏·莱希
摄影：Nicolas Brasseur
费吉斯的作品时常描绘穿着考究的主人公——声名显赫的皇室贵族成员或是上流社会人士，他们在宏伟华贵的宅邸或乡村田园的自然风光中宴饮、郊游，悠闲享乐。本次展览分为六个单元：“梦魅”、“重访”、“宫廷风范”、“雅室”、“宴游”、“社交肖像”，呈现艺术家在创作中反复描绘的主题和场景。
费吉斯通常将画布平铺于低矮的桌面或地板上，并将稀释的丙烯颜料泼洒其上。在此过程中，重力替代画笔使颜料在画布上流动、漫延、凝结……艺术家非常享受这种炼金术般充满未知和偶然性的创作过程，而由此呈现出的画面介于抽象与具象之间：交融的色彩，消溶的形态，模糊的身体轮廓行将化于繁盛奢华的画面背景之中，作品体现了艺术家对媒介的物质性和感官性的探索。
作品中的人物犹如幽灵鬼魅或是滑稽小丑一般拥有扭曲的面容和诡谲的情态，营造出或骇人或迷幻的怪诞氛围，令人联想起艺术家喜爱的哥特文学。就如泛起涟漪的水面上晃动的倒影，画面中雍容奢华的场景显得虚浮而缥缈，好似即将消散的幻境或梦境.....费吉斯的创作巧妙地游走于梦幻与怪诞、幽默与骇人、致敬与颠覆之间。
《狂热崇拜（大幅）》，2015，布面丙烯
© 日内瓦·费吉斯，致谢艺术家与阿尔敏·莱希
摄影：Rebecca Fanuele
关于艺术家
日内瓦·费吉斯肖像，2021
© 日内瓦·费吉斯，致谢艺术家与阿尔敏·莱希
摄影：Doreen Kilfeather
Genieve Figgis: Drama Party
15 April, 2023 – 4 June, 2023
M WOODS 798
Curated by Qi Yuanlin, Deng Yingying
"Painting is about pleasure. If it weren't pleasurable, I wouldn't do it." - Genieve Figgis
M WOODS is proud to announce the first solo museum exhibition in Asia by Irish artist Genieve Figgis (b. 1972). The exhibition “Drama Party” will present a comprehensive mid-career overview of Figgis' artistic practice from the early years of her career to the present day, featuring around forty paintings among which several new works created this year will be shown to the public for the first time.
Figgis’ works often feature elaborately dressed protagonists- whether well-known members of royalty and aristocracy or generic subjects of the genteel class – engaging in leisurely activities such as feasting, country outing or attending parties in sumptuous stately manors or idyllic natural landscapes. The exhibition will be divided into six different sections: “Phantasy”, “‘After’ Series”, “the Royal”, “Interior Scene”, “Fête Galante” and “Social Portraiture”, exploring major themes and scenarios the artist constantly returns to.
Taking a keen interest in the European art and aesthetics of the 18th century such as the Rococo style and the English “conversation piece”, Figgis reinterpreted and reimagined famous paintings by the Old Masters, such as Fragonard, Boucher, Gainsborough and Goya. The artist created what she refers to as the “cover versions” of their works with her signature swirling brushstroke and fluid pigment.
Working flat on low tables or the floor and pouring diluted acrylic paint on canvases, Figgis lets gravity play as much role as her brush does. She enjoys immersing herself in the process with unpredictable outcomes dictated by chance. As a result, her work straddles between figuration and abstraction, in which colors mingle and forms dissolve into each other. With blurring body contours melting into exuberantly painted backgrounds where swaths of paint dribble and flow, they reveal the experimental nature of the artist's working process.
In Figgis’ work, the characters appear as phantom or clown-like creatures whose deformed visages and twisted expressions exude an air of psychedelic humor, creating a mysterious ambience reminiscent of Gothic literature which the artist has been particularly fond of. As if seen through the surface of rippling water, her lavish scenes with their distorted forms reveal an ethereal unreality, like a mirage or dream about to dissipate into air. Figgis’ work oscillates between fantasy and grotesque, absurdity and horror, homage and subversion.
Though painting has always been part of her life, Figgis chose an unconventional path of starting her family first as mother and wife before fully settling into the art world. The artist received recognition initially through social media and since then, her work has reached a wider audience and has been exhibited internationally.
Genieve Figgis was born in 1972 in Dublin, Ireland and currently lives and works in County Wicklow, Ireland. She received an MFA from the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2012. Figgis’ work has been featured in numerous exhibitions and projects in art institutions such as MoMu, Antwerp; Irish Museum of Modern Art (IMMA), Dublin; National Museum of Ireland, Dublin; Consortium Museum, Dijon, France; Aishti Foundation, Lebanon; and the Met Opera, New York City, NY. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Bass Museum of Art, Miami, US; Aishti Foundation, Beirut, Lebanon; Pérez Art Museum, Miami, USA; Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, USA and so on.
本文来自微信公众号“MWOODS木木美术馆”（ID：MWOODSARTMUSEUM）。大作社经授权转载，该文观点仅代表作者本人，大作社平台仅提供信息存储空间服务。
