What’s hanging on your wall at home?
When walking into somebody’s house for the first time, I’m always intrigued to see what they have on their walls. Is it artwork? Paintings or photographs? In a modern or traditional style? Are there any personal portraits? Looking at somebody’s walls gives me the feeling I get to know them a bit better. This is why I love going to LUMAS over and over again – they regularly change the collection on display, showing me a different side of their personality. Of course the best part is that LUMAS makes unique and limited edition photography affordable, giving me the chance to purchase new pieces once in a while.
I love their latest collection – launched today, Thursday 26 October.
My highlights are the nature-inspired and dialogue of light series which I’m sharing with you here!
Visions of Nature
Featuring artworks with elusive spores of the artificial, the creative, and the unforeseen that arise before our very eyes. Nature holds an immeasurable bounty of beautiful forms. If you were to put the tiniest fraction side by side, it would be the most dazzling collection in the world. Art does just that: selects and assembles. And each time, a new idyllic dream of life comes into being. Since the advent of digital photography, the opportunities for selecting and assembling have increased exponentially. For art, this means new creative possibilities that extend into the realm of reality.
Paradise is one particular idyll that art always returns to, in order to convince itself of its existence. In her work, Hungarian artist Katalin Vasali visits this mythical place in a new way. Her series of plant tableaus entitles Eden is artificially constructed. Upon closer inspection, the extravagant vegetation so reminiscent of forgotten ancient growth turns out to be a lush landscape with plants of delirious size. With small-leafed plants in transformed dimensions set next to large growth plants, Vasali removes the measures of reality. Additionally, the pictures have a tropical sheen as if every element were covered in a fresh dew. In a way they cast doubt on the path of evolution and question our own imagination.
Katalin Vasali about her Eden Series:
The relation between urban life and nature always interested me and therefore it returns in my projects repeatedly in different ways. Defining the meaning of the garden had an important role during the development of this work: it had symbolic meanings and there were many myths and stories about gardens throughout history. The title of this series refers to this mythical meaning.
Another favourite artist of mine is Isabelle Menin. There’s a sense of recognition when you see her colourful flower arrangements embedded in a hazy sky. It is no coincidence that they bring Flemish painting and the work of Peter Paul Reubens to mind. Here however, the full-bodied beauty standards of yester-year have been transformed directly into sensual calyxes and voluminous perfumes. Your gaze glides over this artificial paradise like the drunk flight of a bumble-bee, all the while slurping its fragrant nectar for the soul.
Menin describes her compositions as “Inland photographs and disordered landscapes”, as a means of drawing parallels between the complexity of the human character and that of nature.
Dialogue of Light
LUMAS took the elements packed into the depiction of Venus’s mythical birth – the figurative and the abstract, the body emerging from the sea foam – and put them side by side in a thrilling thematic dialogue.
One of the featured artists in this theme is Dani Oliver – a young French video artist who takes the play of light and shadow on bare skin to new dimensions. His perfectly composed light projections on female bodies seek nothing less than an absolute epitome of feminine beauty. His brilliant and completely precise use of light highlights the bodies, transforming dancers and models into new incarnations of Venus. At times these resemble statues, at times mythical half-humans. At other times, they step into space like a video projection from the darkness. The seafoam of myth has transformed into a modern pattern of light.
LUMAS Gallery & Table Tales
We’re proud to have LUMAS Gallery as a brand partner for our 2018 Table Tales edition.
Explore and experience our brand partners in your own home, creating moments to share.
LUMAS Gallery invites you for an exclusive tour. Enjoy a glass of Prosecco and some chocolates while you hear more about the gallery and its many artists.
By appointment only, so book your tour now via info@lumas.com.sg.
Don’t have a copy of Table Tales yet?
About The Author: Karin van Vliet
Karin van Vliet is the author and publisher of Table Tales, an experiential dining book that is about encouraging meaningful connections with others and crafting lasting memories with your loved ones. Through a curated list of 10 genuine and fantastic dining recommendations that have been personally sampled by Karin and her partner, Peter, they hope to share their extraordinary experience with others in the hopes of elevating their lifestyles by changing the way they dine out and encouraging them to unplug from their digital lives.
More posts by Karin van Vliet