Bodies and objects are back at Independent 2014, thanks to Oliver Osborne and Brad Troemel

 

If the realm of the art practice is half occupied by artists who are not interested in representing bodies or objects, the other half focuses on where human beings and the environment in which they live in are constantly reflected. Our image gallery of today is dedicated to this latter group.

 

Oliver Osborne’s solo booth at Independent in Chelsea is a must visit. It proves that the artist is using painting to put on stage the space outside the painting. His colour-fields are a sort of walls, or doors – be careful, not mirrors – behind which there is the parallel dimension of what is abstract. The opposite side is where the realistic painting lies, hence the two women’s heads who effectively are looking at the abstract “side”, or “outside” (the model is the artist’s girlfriend). As you may notice from our images, the interaction between the real and the painted is indeed impressive.

 

The second artist on which we would like to draw your attention is Brad Troemel, who is also having a solo booth at Independent (with Untitled gallery). At the same time, he is exhibiting in another solo show at Zach Feuer’s gallery, whose entrance is just beside the one of the art fair. His vaacum-sealed collection of symbolic “elements” turns to be a surrealistic not-painted painting. By exaggerating the scale of a conventional plastic bag and filling it with objects could open new perspectives in the sphere of the object-based art, that is most of the times driven by the role played by the support. In this case this conceptual tool seems to work properly, yet the artist shouldn’t stop here. To be elaborated.

 

July 18, 2015