Nicolas Party
Red Forest
30 June – 24 September 2022
Hong Kong
‘Red Forest’ is Nicolas Party’s first solo exhibition in Hong Kong in which he looks to the five elements of the material world as his starting point: wood, fire, earth, metal and water. Comprised of 13 new pastel landscapes and portraits created specifically for this show, ‘Red Forest’ illuminates nature’s complex and often inextricable ties with humanity.
Explore the exhibition
Party’s childhood in Switzerland imparted an early fascination with landscape and the natural world, and the influence of this country places Party firmly within the trajectory of central European landscape painting. Considering this historical canon anew amid the current climate crises, ‘Red Forest’ presents Party’s most recent explorations in pastel depicting forest fires.
In addition to Party’s ‘Red Forest’ paintings, the artist’s recent series of portraits feature figures cloaked in meteorites from outer space. The appearance of meteorites is reminiscent of stones in Chinese natural sculpture, or metal in Chinese scholar’s rocks of literati culture. These rock formations are depicted in remarkable, intricate forms with numerous crevices, signaling erosion and forming a stark contrast against the human figures that bear them. The timelessness of painting and its associated traditions fascinate Party. This is also embodied in the ‘Water Reflection’ paintings as clouds, water and reflections symbolize a kind of timelessness, or the continual passage of time.
Nicolas Party: Pastel
A new film by Pablo Tapia-Plá for ‘Ursula’ magazine takes a closer look at the artist’s use of pastels, inside his New York studio and La Maison du Pastel in Paris.
This new body of artwork is displayed against brightly painted walls; Party’s early interest in graffiti and murals – his projects in this arena have included major commissions for the Dallas Museum of Art and the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles – has led to a particular approach toward the installation and presentation of his pastels. He routinely deploys color and makes architectural interventions in exhibition spaces in order to construct enveloping experiences for the viewer.
On view in Hong Kong
The gallery is open Tue – Sat, 11 am – 7 pm.
Please visit our location page to plan your visit.
About the Artist
Nicolas Party
Born in Lausanne in 1980, Party is a figurative painter who has achieved critical admiration for his familiar yet unsettling landscapes, portraits, and still lifes that simultaneously celebrate and challenge conventions of representational painting. His works are primarily created in soft pastel, an idiosyncratic choice of medium in the 21st-century,...
Inquire about available works by Nicolas Party
On view now through 24 September 2022 at Hauser & Wirth Hong Kong.
Related Content
Current Exhibitions
1 / 10