Exhibition title：Make Believe
Artists：Niko de La Faye & Régis Gonzalez
Dates & Times：12th March – 26th April, 2014
Tuesday – Saturday, 12pm – 6pm. Closed on public holidays.
Artist talk by Niko de La Faye at 5pm on 15th March, 2014
Mur Nomade: Unit 1606, 16/F, Hing Wai Centre, 7 Tin Wan Praya Road,
Venue：Aberdeen, Hong Kong
Mur Nomade presents MAKE BELIEVE works by Niko de La Faye & Régis Gonzalez
Make Believe is an exhibition of portraits in the media of painting, photography and ink on paper. It presents, for the first time in Hong Kong, Niko de La Faye’s Visages series, a two-year long photographic project conducted between Paris and Beijing. It also features a selection of works by Régis Gonzalez from his series recently exhibited at Lyon Biennale of contemporary art.
The title of the exhibition is a direct reference to Régis Gonzalez recurrent theme of childhood, as well as to the performance-based artistic practice of Niko de La Faye. The portraits presented in Make Believe are grounded in reality and at the same time are imaginary creations. They are invitations to question the idea of representation, and explore the borders between acting, pretending and deceiving.
About the Visages project and the idea of painting on faces, Niko de La Faye wrote:
‘I didn’t need a canvas, and furthermore I was intrigued by the idea of adding shapes and colours to the existing landscape of the human face. I would also integrate living eyes within the canvas. This way I could give an interesting dimension to an image that would be a mix between painting and photography. (…) In total, seventy-five models had their faces painted for this project. A collection of ten nationalities – Chinese, French, Indian, American, English, Irish, Hungarian, Dutch, Russian, and Belgian – ranging from 11 to 82 years old.’
About the creative process and the influences behind his series of portraits, Régis Gonzalez says:
‘I spend time looking for models. In fact, they are always people or friends but I need time to look at them and imagine them in some situation. I spend a lot of my time walking – from compulsion.
Some situations may arise and turn into images that gradually fix themselves in my mind. I don’t know where they come from and they’re rather hazy, I allow them to become more detailed and then I try to transpose them into paint. (…) For the past couple of years I’ve been listening to a sort of music that has taken me quite a way. It’s a sort of sub-genre of underground hip-hop called horrorcore. It’s mostly based on sampling from films. Its contents are very vicious and these stimulate me to see images. It’s hip-hop from the lowest depths of society that hardly anybody listens to. Their music is available free to download, and I return the favour from time to time by working free on their visuals. In short, it creates the spiteful anger and atmosphere necessary to work long days on paintings.’
I About Niko de La Faye I
Niko de La Faye is a French artist, born in 1978. After his studies, he moved to San Francisco, where he designed costumes and choreographed shows for a couple of years. Since 2008, the artist has been sharing his time between France and China. He currently lives and works in Beijing. Niko de La Faye’s work is about geometry, primary colours and interaction with people. He creates kinetic sculptures, installations, photographs and costumes. Performance is the underlying component of all the art forms he explores, as part of the creative process or in the presentation of the end result.
Visages is a photographic series of very graphic portraits. To complete it, Niko de La Faye worked with seventy-five models over two years. With his kinetic sculptures, the artist wishes to create mechanical interpretations of his environment. Moreover the artist recently directed several shadow theatre shows in Beijing.
I About Régis Gonzalez I
Born in 1976, Régis Gonzalez lives and works in France. He graduated in Fine Arts in 2001 and has had exhibitions throughout Europe.
Last year, Régis Gonzalez was invited to Hong Kong for a residency and exhibition during Le French May festival, supported by Osage Art Foundation. Moreover he had a solo exhibition at Lyon Biennale of Contemporary Art. This Spring, Régis Gonzalez was selected to participate in an artist-in-residence program in France to complete a 45-metre long mural painting. His 2014 agenda in Asia includes the Make Believe exhibition at Mur Nomade in Hong Kong, followed by the presentation of his work in Taipei.
In his art practice, Régis Gonzalez draws on his fervent study of art history combined with his caustic observation of our modern society. Régis Gonzalez’s works touch themes such as death and anxiety. They are unsettling, ambiguous and, at time, can even provoke unease. The formal construction of his drawings and paintings contributes to taking viewers out of their comfort zones for he uses unexpected viewpoints or subtle manipulations of the classical rules of perspective and representation.
Régis Gonzalez’s paintings and works on papers are collected internationally.
I About Mur Nomade I
Mur Nomade is a curatorial office and gallery. Our name is the French translation of ‘nomadic wall’. We present site-specific projects in selected venues all around Hong Kong, in addition to regular exhibitions at our gallery space in Aberdeen. We work closely with local and international artists to imagine and conceive exhibitions and programmes such as artist residencies, collaborative art projects, travel grants, workshops and outreach initiatives.
Mur Nomade focuses on projects encouraging cultural exchanges and creative encounters. We like bold ideas and we are convinced that cultural exchanges support creativity, stimulate emulation and encourage experimentation.
www.murnomade.com
