Thysa Zevenbergen - Hong Kong

About

ML Contemporary and Céline Andrée are pleased to present the inaugural show of Dutch born artist, Thysa Zevenbergen. The exhibition will feature Zevenbergen's Hong Kong Series from 2012. The gallery space will also serve as an artist residence. Zevenbergen will transport her Amsterdam studio to St. James's, where her techniques and inspirations will be on view to the public and she will continue creating works in situ.”¨Thysa Zevenbergen (b. 1987) creates highly technical work, which reflects her life experience living and traveling in different parts of the world.à‚  Her fascination with architecture stemmed from her upbringing. Growing up in different cities in The Netherlands, America and France, she was constantly exposed to a wide range of architecture, which inspired her to pursue a career in the arts. Her oeuvre presents cityscapes from various iconic cities, including, London, New York, Amsterdam and Hong Kong. It ranges from monochrome to bright color oils as well as drawings.”¨ Zevenbergen combines her intrigue and enthusiasm for architecture and photography with her strength in draftsmanship to create emotional representations of cities. The ‘floating window' technique was a result of a bicycle accident the artist suffered in 2010.à‚  The process to recovery kept her indoors for many weeks where she felt trapped and captured, both physically and emotionally. The ‘floating windows' became a symbol for her desire to reconnect with city life.à‚  This symbol is present in the artist's pencil drawings and the technique is diluted throughout her oil paintings. The Hong Kong series is the latest installment of Zevenbergen's work. She began drawing cityscapes during her studies, both in Amsterdam and New York. Early works reflect a dreamlike transcendence of architecture in the cities she inhabited. However, upon visiting Hong Kong, her artistic style began to change. Enthralled by the dynamics of the city, she started using vibrant colors and increased the size of her works to create much more abstract pieces. It is this shift in her work that will be explored in the current exhibition. The vibrant and colorful oil canvases will be on display along side Zevenbergen's monochrome mixed media works on paper. The combination of medium and presence/lack of color brings to life a city, which has recently begun to command a strong presence in the Contemporary Art scene.”¨This exhibition is the latest project for curator Milla Lozanova of ML Contemporary (recently on view was India Evans: Au Boudoir at the Gallery Wolf and Badger). It is presented at Gallery 8 and coincides with Chinese New Year, and the Post War and Contemporary Art auction series. milla.lozanova@gmail.com