Gallery EXIT is pleased to announce “BLOOMY GLOOMY BOOM”, a solo exhibition of new works by Hilarie HON. The exhibition will open on 18 February 2017 and remain on view through 15 March 2017. An opening reception will be held on Saturday, 18 February from 4 to 6 pm.

Hon’s highly personal painting style employs bold colours and strong contrasts to express an inner world full of comical conflict and struggle. In her paintings, we encounter strange figures wearing party hats and blowing party blowers, ghostly spirits floating through fluorescent forests as well as smiling houses and flower pots.

The dreamlike atmosphere is heightened by Hon’s distinctive palette. Many of her paintings feature large patches of unbroken red, orange or magenta. The intensity of these colours is further increased by letting them stand out against a black backdrop or contrasting them with complementary shades of green or turquoise.

Immersed in an unreal neon glow, Hon’s sceneries evoke the alienation and helplessness we sometimes feel in nightmares. But her world is not entirely bleak: In almost all of her paintings, we encounter highly stylised smiling faces, suggestive of a humour that offsets the melancholy hiding beneath all things.