ARCO Lisboa - James Collins and Kemar Keanu Wynter
Opening Section
25- 28th May 2023
Encounter is pleased to present a dual exhibition of new works by James Collins and Kemar Keanu Wynter at ARCO Lisboa 2023.
James Collins (1992) graduated with BA (Hons) from Wimbledon College of Art, London, in 2015 and Master of Arts (MA) from Royal College of Art, London, in 2017. Recent solo and dual exhibitions include ‘James Collins’ Encounter, Lisbon (upcoming 2023), ‘Occultation’ CAR Gallery, Bologne (2021), ‘14’ PM/AM, London (2021), ‘Penumbra’ Claas Reiss, London (2021). Selected group exhibitions include ‘The Reason For Painting’ Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, United Kingdom (2023), ‘Here and Long Ago’ Gerhard Hofland, Amsterdam (2023), ‘Alte Freunde, neue Freunde’ Claas Reiss, London (2021) ‘Hideaway’ Monti8, Latina (Italy), ‘Abstract with Figure’ at James Fuentes, New York (2020), ‘Lost & Found’ at Rod Barton in London (2017), ‘Duo’ at Galleri Jacob Bjørn in Aarhus, Denmark (2018) Collins was included in the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2015 and the John Moore Painting Prize in 2016. Collins work included in the Simmons and Simmons Collection and can be found in important private collections in UK, Europe, America, Canada and New Zealand.
“I’m interested in the alchemy of paint. The colours I use have particular properties that I try to utilise within the work. One type of paint can be used to bring forward one part of the painting; a deeper colour can add an internal space for the painting to sink into. Deciding which colour goes where is something born out of trying to understand what that particular colour can offer the painting.’’ (James Collins).
Kemar Keanu Wynter (b. Brooklyn, NY) holds a BFA from the SUNY Purchase School of Art and Design. Drawing upon his years of Friday nights cooking in familial kitchens and a nourished upbringing along the bakery and jerk shop-lined cross-streets of Crown Heights, Kemar Keanu Wynter’s abstract works are a generous stew of language and pigment. Layers of luscious, gestural strokes draw the viewer into fields of color which frequently operate with coded references to his histories; one, storied and generations-long in the Antilles and another budding and burgeoning in the Five Boroughs. The presentation focusses on an interconnected body of watercolours created during Wynter’s studio residencies at the ARos Kunstmuseum in Aarhus, Denmark and the Art Quarter Budapest in Budafok. The works, which are each accompanied by a piece of poetic prose, are haptic recollections of specific sensory moments and map the artist’s experiences of travelling around Europe over a period of three months. In each work, Wynter pushes the boundaries of abstract composition, accentuating and blurring, constructing and erasing, contrasting and blending. In this manner, layered processes of remembering become material form. Reminiscences are enabled through subtle slippages of line, overlapping spills of paint and an energetic language of coded marks.
Recent solo exhibitions include; ‘Heralds’ Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York (2023), ‘Digest’ Encounter, Lisbon (2023), ‘Pairings’ Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery, New York (2021), ‘Portions’ Tiger Strikes Asteroid, New York (2021). He has exhibited in several recent group shows including ‘Death of Beauty’ Sargents Daughters, Los Angeles (2023), ‘Notes on Ecstatic Unity’ OTP Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark (2021), ‘Faraway Nearby’ North Loop Gallery, Massachusetts (2021), ‘Friends and Family’, Magenta Plains, New York (2021), ‘Shining in the Low Tide’ Unclebrother, Hancock, New York (2021) and ‘I Saw it Hang Down There’ Bode Projects, Berlin (2021). Wynter has been an artist-in-residence at The Macedonia Institute, Anderson Ranch Centre, Ox-Bow School of Art, the ARoS Kunstmuseum in Aarhus, Denmark and AQB in Budapest, Hungary (both facilitated by Flux Factory, New York). His work is held in the collection of the Art Galleries at Black Studies at the University of Texas, Austin as well as important private collections internationally. His paintings have also recently been featured in Artforum, The Brooklyn Rail and The New York Times.