The Intruder's Lot

Hollybush Gardens is pleased to announce 'The Intruder's Lot', a solo exhibition of new work by Bruno Pacheco. 

Spread across the gallery, several large-scale works show compositions and motifs that echo one another, depicting mythological scenes of transformation sourced from majolica pottery: Diana and Actaeon in Brusquely, Zeus and Io in Weaving in 'Pastoral', The Judgement of Paris in 'Prelude' (all 2023). In each painting, these scenes have been rendered incomplete or obscured; either turned on their side or upside down, with edges missing. The artist’s brushstrokes are swift and loose, the image assembled by light and colour through an optical encounter in space. Meanwhile, something that doesn’t belong irrupts into the picture plane: a figure, a chair, a yellow frame. It becomes clear that we are looking at images within images, and that we are situated in the artist’s studio. These paintings function like mises-en-abymes invoking a meta-reflection on the medium of painting itself.

Taken together, the different layers of reality that make up these compositions diffuse into an enigmatic whole. Though seemingly indistinct, the soft and subtle compositions are exacting in their premise of depicting the very subject of transformation. The resulting impression is one that evokes a sense of fluidity and becoming. Akin to the recurring figure of the artist, a pair of swimming goggles and a vacant studio chair act as points of transition between images, drawing attention to the act of staging and framing that takes place in the studio.

The artist’s distinct palette is characterised by soft hues of yellow, pink, green and blue. The application of paint across the canvas is fast and translucent, the brushwork is at once present and muddled, blurring the distinction between different layers of reality and time, between the classical and the modern.

Some of the paintings are displayed suspended in space on steel stilts, a structure that the artist often employs in his exhibitions and that he specifically designed in collaboration with architect Kris Kimpe. These are painted in the same pink as the faded doors of Pacheco’s studio, furthering the dialogue between the works and the space of production. This display mechanism invites a choreographed walk through the gallery that leads the viewer to various vantage points, where the back of some paintings is visible while other works cannot be seen simultaneously, disabling a compelling act of comparison. Various smaller paintings present singular propositions: a dog’s head facing the same direction as the onlooking viewer, a hand holding a majolica plate, variations on Narcissus. Through his practice of painting, Pacheco not only questions the notion of pictorial illusion that is the premise of his medium, but he also invites us to think about the act of looking, and how we perform it.