Double Take Gully - Alexis
‘Double Take’ celebrates the works of French artists Paul Alexis and Gully. In their re-contextualizations of classic images, both Gully and Alexis’s masterful appropriations evoke new meanings informed by conscious experience and challenge pre-concieved associations to the familiar. By removing works of art from the traditionally linear continuum of art history, Gully and Alexis provoke the contemporary viewer while meditating on the act of perception itself. Paul Alexis is a French artist born in 1947. In his large-scale steel structures, shadows of classic icons are suppressed to reveal ethereal reminders of images engrained in, but perhaps neglected by, our collective memory. While layers of metal sheets emphasize our distance from these icons, the faces lurking under the surface permeate through time and confront our relationship to history and context. Gully is known for his contemporary street art. His striking meta-paintings exhibited in ‘Double Take’ pay tribute to legends of the art world in facetious scenes of coexistence between art and observer. While playful, his works are a poignant examination of the influence of space, time and spectatorship on the transcendent meaning of a given work of art.
Gilles Dyan
Opera Gallery Group Chairman & Founder
Shirley Yablonsky
Opera Gallery Hong Kong Director
Gully is a French artist born in 1979. Hailing from the world of Graffiti Art, Gully decided to abandon the street for canvas after discovering the Appropriation movement. Ever since, he has conquered the hearts of art lovers everywhere thanks to his unique compositions telescoping diverse genres, art icons and centuries. Gully dives deep, tears apart, integrates and reshapes the powerful features of the great names in Art History, whether it be Edward Hopper, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jeff Koons or OsGemeos. His works are rare, as his production is quite limited. Mysterious, Gully always appears in public under cover and never attends his exhibitions. Could you present yourself and tell us where your pseudonym comes from? I’m an ex-Graffiti artist who wanted to do something else. So, for a new direction I felt I needed a new pseudonym. When it was time to sign my first piece, I wanted a pseudonym that wasn’t only a clear break from my Graffiti past – without repudiating it - but also something that would announce what I wanted to do. One day, while my kids were watching television, I was doodling various series of letters when a commercial’s slogan caught my attention. I heard this word in English… gully. Talk about a clear break; it was exactly what I was looking for. In English slang, Gully means “related to street life and gangsters”. Can you explain your concept? My work is made up of stories from my personal life in which I meet art icons. I borrow certain existing characters or scenes that I stage in my own personal universe.
Rockwell meets Lichtenstein 2 - 2014 Mixed media on canvas 120 x 160 cm - 47.2 x 63 in.
Rockwell meets Seurat 1 - 2014 Mixed media on canvas 160 x 240 cm - 63 x 94.5 in.
leyendecker meets wesselman 1 - 2014 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 81 cm - 39.4 x 31.2 in.
Sambrook meets miro 1 - 2014 Mixed media on canvas 100 x 81 cm - 39.4 x 31.2 in.
dohanos meets art school 1 - 2014 Mixed media on canvas 150 x 122 cm - 59.1 x 48 in.
Holmes meets gully art - 2014
falter meets remington 1 - 2014
Mixed media on canvas 120 x 126 cm - 47.2 x 49.6 in.
Mixed media on canvas 150 x 173 cm - 59.1 x 68.1 in.
falter meets calder 1 - 2014 Mixed media on canvas 150 x 140 cm - 59.1 x 55.1 in.
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hommage nthk 12 bikers - 2013 Mixed media on canvas 132 x 244 cm - 52 x 96.1 in.
this is not a basquiat 7 - 2013 Mixed media on canvas 160 x 130 cm - 63 x 51.2 in.
DOHANOS AND THE CHiLDREN MEET BANKSY 1 - 2013
DOHANOS meets obey 1 - 2013
Mixed media on canvas 187 x 201 cm - 73.6 x 80 in.
Mixed media on canvas 200 x 195 cm - 78.7 x 76.8 in.
President of the French Salon Comparaisons, Paris President of Art en Capital, Paris President of the Federation of Historical Art Salons of the Grand Palais, Paris Knight of the French National Order of the Legion of Honour Knight of the French Order of Arts and Letters One must look towards Asia to try and pierce the mystery surrounding Paul Alexis, if such is indeed possible. The words of Chinese painter Wang Yan Cheng clear the way: “After his travels throughout China, Paul’s art was impregnated with the spirit of the heart’s song coming out of the fog, a creation rising above the things of this world... The art of Paul, both realistic and abstract, strives to revive the souvenir...” These words evoke not only the fleeting moments of our existence. They also teach us how to subtly slip from the day-to-day to the historical, by using modern-day icons, dismantling expected lines and shapes, giving rise, with power but also subtlety, to a form of humanity offered up within the silence of humility. In the larger sized formats that he prefers, faces progressively reveal themselves on the canvas, reminding us of the mysteries of the camera obscura . The mastering of such a subtle abundance of shadow and light are again combined with the grand tradition, celebrating light as a deeply guarded secret of matter. But by disintegrating such matter, Paul Alexis redefined a genre within the very heart of contemporary art, by a veritable geometric deconstruction where paths to the abstract and figurative incessantly intermingle. President of the Salon Comparaisons that showcased artists such as Klein, Arman, Niki de Saint-Phalle, Poliakoff, etc., Paul Alexis is above all someone who deciphers with passion, tracking the hidden messages coded by the hieroglyphics of our times.
While always remaining faithful to what typifies his paintings, Alexis never feared using various supports that would constantly force him to adapt. He would go from canvas to cardboard and metal without hesitating to mix and combine. It is therefore not surprising to see his “canvas and metal” works, both innovative and faithful to what defines his own style, seduce so many experienced art collectors so quickly. Despite the heterogeneousness of mediums used, the ease with which he maintains a flowing passage between abstract and figurative surfaces is part of his genius. By provoking questions and the imaginary, he offers to each of us the opportunity to create our own symbolic figures, enigmatic and blurred by a world transcended by the artist’s unique vision. His work is part of numerous prestigious private collections, mainly in France, Great Britain, China, Singapore, the Middle East (including the Royal Family of Morocco), as well as in the United States...
B.B. - 2014 Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
Lincoln, l’âme americaine - 2012
LA LIBERTE ET LE MONDE - 2014
Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
che - 2014 Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
darling i feel so good - 2014
oh my darling - 2014
Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
Steve McQueen - 2012 Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
Tomato bleu - 2012 Oil on steel wire on canvas 140 x 115 cm - 55.2 x 45.3 in.
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