Their exhibitions will open on 16th December and remain on view until late February.
A l'Ombra del Tomir is the second solo exhibition of Majorca-based American artist Nicholas Woods at the gallery.
The Brazilian Lucas Simões will also display his work for the second time at Pelaires, this time with a selection of wall sculptures called Dormentes.
The Pelaires Cabinet space will house the first-ever exhibition in Spain of the young British artist Evie O'Connor, featuring ten small paintings.
Pelaires Gallery is closing the year with solo exhibitions by Nicholas Woods, Lucas Simões and Evie O'Connor, which are set to open on 16th December and remain on view until February. This is the second solo exhibition at the gallery for both the Majorca-based American artist Nicholas Woods and the Brazilian Lucas Simões, and the first show in Spain for the young British artist Evie O'Connor.
Nicholas Woods | A l'ombra del Tormir
The ground floor of Pelaires Gallery will host Nicholas Woods' second solo exhibition at the gallery. The American artist —who lives in Majorca— will display a selection of approximately twenty works, including canvas and paper. In A l'ombra del Tomir, the title of the exhibition, Woods uses previously worked canvases —remnants recycled from his studio— as the foundation for a series of luminous, larger than life images in oil, oil stick and pastel.
Nicholas Woods works with canvas and paper in a continuous way, adding and erasing, exploring layers and textures, and reusing materials and techniques interchangeably. Starting from a sort of archive of previous research, he captures some of the main themes that he has focused on throughout his career, this time from a more synthetic point of view. Portraits and female bodies on neutral backgrounds, close-ups of flowers and impossible landscapes. The construction of an emotional landscape that sometimes represents a longed-for place and sometimes a made-up one.
Lucas Simõe | Dormentes
The second solo exhibition at the gallery of Brazilian artist Lucas Simões, entitled Dormentes, features a selection of wall sculptures dating from 2015 to 2021. The pieces are made of concrete, steel, paper, brass and copper, and are in line with his most recent work, which focuses on research and the duality of the perception of materials. They are architectural works both in appearance and conception, since Simoes —also an architect— is very much interested in the primary usefulness, the experience and the social construction of architecture in relation to humankind.
"Those who actually have power can either exercise it or not. Power is essentially defined by the possibility of its non-act, by the possibility of remaining dormant. […] in such manner, great poetry doesn't merely mean what it explicitly says, but also the act of telling, the potency and impotence of telling […]." Excerpt from Giorgio Agamben's text, where the author relates Aristoteles' text with Dormition of Art, a 17th-century painting attributed to Artemisia Gentileschi which inspired the sculptures by artist Lucas Simões displayed in this exhibition.
Evie O'Connor | Hyperreality
The Pelaires Cabinet will showcase the work by young British artist Evie O'Connor, who is exhibiting in Spain for the first time ever. Hyperreality features ten small paintings that will occupy a more intimate space in terms of intentions and size. Her paintings examine, critique and ponder the confusing climate we find ourselves in. Her work asks personal and uncomfortable questions about the breeding ground of excess that we all play a part in creating. It invites conversation surrounding class, which for her is necessary and long overdue, and dissects the often empty aspiration of the scenes she envisions. Performative affluence and sun-kissed elitism become galleries in themselves, creating vignettes of beautiful privilege that are both repulsive and idyllic in our world of pain, poverty and pandemics.
Using her own archive, review sites and the infinite images of social media to construct new scenes of escapism, her work plays with both our conscious and submerged desires to live in an Eden of beauty and satiated desires. The seduction of wealth's talismans all pad out our fantasy of a palm-filled Western mirage. The pool, a common symbol in her paintings, represents the small few who can afford to float freely in this atmosphere; seemingly without effort. Ostentatious supercars litter the Riviera, audibly demanding the attention of crowds before they even meet your eyes. Cocktail parties at exclusive hotels feature swarms of stars, social climbers, artists and plus ones. A hive of the world's bourgeois and the people who wish to belong to it. Property portfolios heaving with 8 figure estates decorate the surface of a vase. The scenes appear charming and harmless, but fundamentally represent greed and gross inequality. They capture scenes and moments of the past, and lifestyles that may never be coming back.
Pelaires Cabinet
Pelaires Gallery has selected a series of international artists to put their work on display in the Pelaires Cabinet from December 2021. The gallery will use this hall —adjacent to the principal floor— to present artists who are exhibiting in Spain for the first time ever, using small site-specific installations adapted to this unique environment.
A new exhibition space with a regular programme, more agile in terms of duration, and displaying smaller (more mundane) pieces. The hall was inaugurated by two artists collaborating with the gallery: Nicholas Woods in 2019, and Alain Urrutia in summer 2021. The Cabinet is set to welcome new artists starting in December 2021, such as the young British artist Evie O'Connor, who is unveiling her first-ever project in Spanish territory. A selection of the works featured throughout the year in the Cabinet will be part of a parallel online proposal of the gallery that seeks to increase the visibility of new artists in other platforms.
