D E L P H I N E H O G A R T H L A FAY E
DELPHINE HOGARTH LAFAYE November 1, 2018 - January 5, 2019
D
elphine Hogarth Lafaye’s oeuvre of still lifes, portraits, and landscapes fluctuates provocatively between abstraction and figuration. Working on canvas, the artist chooses from an arsenal of media and techniques to build up each of her compositions: oil paint, acrylic paint, ink, black thread, and collage. She often incorporates nontraditional material as well, for example, coffee stains, shoe brushes, cellar tape, bits of leather, cutouts from Japanese wallpaper, and a hot iron to stamp her canvas. Her instinct to blend classical painting conventions with contemporary, ordinary materials and textures defines the artist’s singular aesthetic and original point-of-view. Hogarth Lafaye’s paintings masterfully evoke the essence of her subjects without rendering them in detail. She chooses scenes based on everyday events or occurrences that have affected her. Her subjects range unpredictably from pregnancy, to garlic strings, to the beach, to a dizzying whirlwind of scattered dandelion seeds. Whether momentous or mundane, the artist treats each subject with equal seriousness and attention to form, color, and composition. Constructed predominantly in cool tones of blues and greens, Russian Roulette (2018) is a table-top still life depicting three bottles. The flattened perspective, together with her repetition of simplified, geometric forms, is reminiscent of mid-20th-century still lifes. In her largest painting in the exhibition, Lemon Tree (2018), Hogarth Lafaye suggests the fruit through a motif of pale yellow mark making. Lacking spatial perspective, the background is heavily abstracted through an amalgamation of cream and grey shapes, both curvilinear and geometric. The kinetic energy of the background paired with the luminosity of the lemons in the foreground take the viewer’s eye on an exploratory dance across the canvas. Girl in Woods (2018) is the artist’s only portrait in the show. It represents a female nude—cast in an even blue light—partially hidden behind a grey-black tree. The woman’s facial expression is the most identifiable element in the work: she gazes intently past the confines of the painting with her left arm raised across her chest in an equivocal gesture. Surrounding her is a forest composed of planes of dark paint and twisting, lopsided trees. Hogarth Lafaye’s new body of work highlights her fluency in creating an engaging relationship between figural elements and purely abstracted forms.
Outside 2018 Oil, acrylic & ink on canvas 59 x 59 inches
Garlic String 2018 Oil, ink, pen & collage on canvas 55 x 55 inches
Taste of Summer 2018 Oil on canvas 23.6 x 23.6 inches
The Beach 2018 Oil, acrylic, ink & black thread on canvas 57.5 x 44.9 inches
High View 2018 Oil, acrylic & collage on canvas 21 x 28.7 inches
Dandelion 2018 Oil on canvas 28.7 x 36 inches
Girl in Woods 2018 Oil, acrylic & ink on canvas 23.6 x 31.9 inches
Lemon Tree 2018 Oil, acrylic & on canvas 64 x 45 inches
Fresh Water 2018 Oil & acrylic on canvas 16 x 19.7 inches
Beautiful South 2018 Oil on canvas 21.5 x 18 inches
Ladybirds 2018 Oil, acrylic, ink & collage on canvas 39.4 x 39.4 inches
Nature’s Kiss 2018 Oil, acrylic & ink on canvas 25.6 x 37 inches
Russian Roulette 2018 Oil, acrylic & collage on canvas 23.8 x 19.5 inches
DELPHINE HOGARTH L AFAYE Born in 1976 in Ile-de-France, France Lives and works in London and Paris
EDUCATION 1998 L’Atelier de Sevres, Paris, France 1995 History of Art, Bristol University, UK SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2019 Thackeray Gallery, London, UK 2018 Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY 2016 Chapters, Thackeray Gallery, London, UK 2012 Zero10 Gallery, The Assembly Rooms, Soho, London, UK 2011 Zero10 Gallery, The Assembly Rooms, Soho, London, UK 2010 L’Etage du Froid, Fat Galerie, Paris, France 2009 Urban Blueprints, Piers Feetham Gallery, London, UK 2007 Room with a Woman, Fat Galerie, Paris, France SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2018 Selected John Moores Prize, Walker Art Gallery, National Museum of Liverpool, UK Life is Beautiful, Atlantic Gallery, New York, NY Thackeray Gallery Group Show, London, UK 2017 Salon d’Automne, Paris, Grand Palais, France Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Paris, France Josie Eastwood Fine Art Gallery, UK
Thackeray Gallery Group Show, London, UK 2016 The Columbia Threadneedle Prize, Mall Galleries, London, UK Selected for the Columbia Threadneedle Prize Exhibition, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, Italy 2015 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Annual Exhibition, Mall Galleries, London, UK Selected finalist for the Conversation Prize Portrait of Mike Bliss, commissioned by Mall Galleries, London, UK Summer Show, Thackeray Gallery, London, UK UK Art for Youth, Art Fair, Mall Galleries, London, UK 3 New Artists, Thackeray Gallery, London, UK 2014 UK Art for Youth, Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London, UK Thackeray Gallery Winter Show, London, UK 2013 UK Art for Youth, Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London, UK 2012 Debut, John Martin Gallery, London, UK 20-21 International Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London, UK 2009 12 Figures, Fat Galerie, Paris, France 20-12 International Art Fair, Royal College of Art, London, UK
2006 Fat Galerie, Loft Sevigné, Paris, France Slick / Fiac off, Paris, France 2003 Auction, portrait of Charlotte Rampling, Maison de L’Amerique Latine, Paris, France 2002 Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Art Fair, Espace Effeil-Branly, Paris, France 2001 Galerie Quincampoix, Paris, France 2000 Grands et Jeunes d’Aujourd’hui, Espace Auteuil, Paris, France Galerie Quicampoix, Paris, France Salon Nouvelles Tendances, Yvelines, France
Catalog © 2018 NANCY MARGOLIS GALLERY Courtesy of Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York and Delphine Hogarth Lafaye © Delphine Hogarth Lafaye Photography © All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reprinted, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any other means, electronic or mechanical now known or hereafter invented, without written permission of publisher.