Alexis Ralaivao joins Kasmin
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Kasmin is delighted to welcome Alexis Ralaivao (b. 1991, France) to the gallery. To celebrate the announcement, two new paintings by the artist will be featured in our Art Basel Hong Kong presentation from March 28–30. The artist’s first exhibition at Kasmin went on view at the gallery’s 297 Tenth Avenue space in June 2023.
Ralaivao’s sensual and diaristic oil paintings find affective charge in carefully selected quotidian scenes. Reimagining the Northern European tradition of genre painting, Ralaivao seamlessly synthesizes the techniques and attentive gaze of Dutch Golden Age painters—Johannes Vermeer and Gerard Ter Borch among them—while remaining rooted in our contemporary society. “I start with a scene from everyday life, ordinary intimate moments,” the artist has said. “But as I sketch and paint them, they become something more. Layers after layers, what was the ‘truth’ is mixed with my personal feelings, desires and fantasies.” Using classical painterly techniques, Ralaivao’s sensitive encapsulations of his subjects’ daily routines possess a timeless humanity and immediacy. His works deftly synthesize wide-reaching cultural reference points, drawing from his ongoing, intensive autodidactic studies of the history of painting and composition, the language of photography, antiques, and French literature. With a deep understanding and appreciation of the artistic allusions in his work, Ralaivao firmly establishes himself in the lineage of painting’s masters and mavericks.
Eric Gleason, Head of Sales at Kasmin, says: “Alexis' painting practice is one of the most genuine, sincere and thoughtful that I have encountered within his generation. His obsession with the history of painting is unwavering, his technical facility impressive, and his commitment to the studio inspiring. Our collaboration has been a true pleasure from the outset and Kasmin is honored to be Alexis' representing gallery going forward."
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Blending an impressionistic soft-focus with strategic photographic framing, Ralaivao’s distinctive crops both invite and refuse. The artist’s early works explore the pleasure of the domestic space, animating a cinematographer’s eye for drama and detail by lingering on the drapery of clothing or bed linens—the soft contours of the fabric alluding to flesh—along with informal portraits and partial nudes in repose. More recently, the artist has probed the language of luxury and its environs, honing in on glimpses of fine-dining, formalwear and other items to mine themes of consumerism and social exclusion. Rich textures such as flesh, hair, and cloth have become hallmarks of his paintings, but Ralaivao’s keen explorations into the formal qualities and aesthetic value of light have also captured the visual thrill of reflective materials such as patent leather, metal, and glassware—subjects with which the artist can demonstrate an instinctive touch for light’s technical representation. By building thinly layered brushstrokes and a respective luminosity, the artist imbues his painterly universe with a dreamlike quality.
Ralaivao lives and works in his home city of Rennes, France, after spending several years in Berlin. In 2022, he was profiled in The Artsy Vanguard. His work is held in institutional collections in the United States and abroad, including the Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas; the Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Musée des Beaux Arts de Rennes, France; Powerlong Museum, Shanghai, China; and the He Art Museum, China.
Portrait above: Rosa Lacavalla
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Exhibitions
Alma Allen
May 16 – June 22, 2024 509 West 27th Street, New YorkThe gallery’s third solo exhibition of work by Alma Allen (b. 1970) brings together new freestanding sculpture and wall reliefs. This body of work evolves various compositional and material directions explored in Allen’s recent site-specific solo exhibition Nunca Solo at Museo Anahuacalli in Mexico City, demonstrating the artist’s ongoing experimentation into the ability of matter to embody contemplations on free will, consciousness, and the nature of time. -
Exhibitions
NARES TRACES
May 16 – June 22, 2024 297 Tenth Avenue, New YorkThe fifteenth solo exhibition at the gallery of work by multidisciplinary artist Jamie Nares (b. 1953) examines over 100 works on paper in a variety of media—namely oil, ink, and enamel—made after refocusing her artistic attention from film to painting in the early 1980s. Coolly perceptive, Nares’ works on paper share the same conceptual focus on movement, rhythm, and measurements of time that has driven the artist’s various bodies of work over the last fifty years. This exhibition points to paper as an essential instrument in Nares’ ongoing exploration of these themes.
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- Diana Al-Hadid
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509 West 27th Street
New York
Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm
+1 212 563 4474
info@kasmingallery.com
297 Tenth Avenue
New York
Tuesday–Saturday, 10am–6pm
+1 212 563 4474
info@kasmingallery.com
Kasmin Sculpture Garden
New York
On view from The High Line at 27th Street
Monday–Sunday, 7am-11pm
+1 212 563 4474
info@kasmingallery.com
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