This Thursday June 11, French artist Gilbert1 will be opening his highly anticipated solo show ‘Out of Control’ at GCA Gallery in Nice, France unveiling a new body of work consisting of a series of eight works on paper and fifteen assemblies/sculptures.
Coming from a graffiti background and having devoted himself to calligraphy and typography for a long time, Gilbert1 is one few artists that have managed the transition from the street to gallery working in a variety of media and developing a unique and genuine style.
Not only influenced by the work of Mathieu, Picasso, Miró and Tapies among others, Gilbert1 is also inspired by the places he visits, making much of his work site-specific. The pieces presented in ‘Out of Control’ are no exception.
From the press release:
Carton, wood and paper form the framework for his works in volume. Manuscripts, scrap metal, colours and transparencies give them resonance. He aptly uses each element. He extracts the qualities and defines a harmony from them. He preserves its real-life experience. So the nail is still rusty, the leaf curled, the stick broken, the colour preserved. But he sticks back together, juxtaposes and reassembles them with talent. Extremely meticulous, he positions each piece in his perfect domino, determines its point of leakage and seeks the impending rupture in it. Yet avoided, thwarted, misled, it reveals a work placed in an impressive equilibrium.
It is probably this mastery that we find so touching in Gilbert1’s sculptures. In the minuscule pieces of souls they carry that he has successfully preserved. In his ingenuity in combining them. In the warmth they emit, their natural or cleverly arranged colours. And whereas they look so fragile to us, composed equally of blank and filled spaces, as if made of nothing, when they leave his hands they transform the chaos into magnificent harmony.
Transposed on the flat surface of a clear Perspex display case, they only seem more precious. When hung they appear impertinent and overturn the nobility (now archaic) of a traditional painting. They become the temple of remnants when positioned.
His drawings composed of black and white are all delicacy and meticulousness. Inherited from his calligraphy, he draws confidently and precisely. His love of base materials stems from his silk-screen work. A flow, an undulation and a sense of reading comes from the graffiti. He plays with ambivalences: A sketched line counters the pointillism of a jet of spray. To a curve, its diagonal. To the black, its white. So he throws, portrays, produces in a few lines his bright, leaping, powerful and controlled movement.
‘Out of Control’ runs until July 30th 2016 at the gallery located on 16 bis rue catherine ségurane 06300 Nice – France
Follow Gilbert1 on Website | Facebook | Instagram.
Author: Fran
Founder and editor of Urbanite. Street Art lover who after the finishing her MA thesis on the Mexican and Norwegian muralist movement in the 1920-50s, developed a fascination for street art and graffiti that eventually led to collaborations with different art blogs, including the creation of this one.
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