BEYOND PLEASURE

Carl Kostyál is delighted to present ‘BEYOND PLEASURE’ by Swedish artist Leo Park. This is the artist’s debut exhibition with the gallery.

The paintings comprising Beyond Pleasure explore new technical and formal shifts. The laid-out perspective and depth can only be articulated through painting and couldn’t be realized in three-dimensional space or captured in a photograph. A similar concept is used for the central motif, its tattoo-like embellishments, or how the elements of the natural surroundings are rendered, with Hirst or Pointillism-like spots depicting sand grains in an almost Pop Art-like way, for example. In the end, every aspect of the image is merely reminiscent of what’s represented rather than being a concrete depiction of it. This gives the work a contemporary twist, clashing the unpredictable, fleshy Cubist designs against the dots of solid pastel colors and a Neo-expressionistic, emotional, and expressive way of defining the dominant forms. All of this marks Park’s departure from the previously emphasized Modernist language and reveals interest in a looser, less human-like field where the traditional and spontaneous are colliding. To some extent, the canvas is used as an area of conflict with the irrational, random “accidents” of the gestural brushwork, adding to the tension by working against the planned passages. - Saša Bogojev