【SPURS 新展】瑞贝卡·哈珀：眨眼间，海水浸润睫毛

瑞贝卡·哈珀：眨眼间，海水浸润睫毛

2023年7月22日—8月27日

Gallery II｜SPURS Gallery，北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路二号院798艺术区D-06

马刺画廊荣幸地宣布将于2023年7月22日推出英国艺术家瑞贝卡·哈珀在画廊的首次个展“眨眼间，海水浸润睫毛”，展出她过去一年间创作的六幅绘画作品及小型装置。

1989年出生在伦敦的哈珀，在泰晤士河边一个叫老艾尔沃思的地方长大，因此“水”对于她作为散居的英国犹太人身份来讲有着更广泛与深刻的含义，它既是如家一般的存在，也是将艺术家与生命、他者和整个世界联系起来的载体。哈珀在很大程度上通过绘画来处理与记录“自我”，并对个人及文化记忆、土地、文学、神话故事做出回应。她精心剪裁收集与观察到的各种材料，将它们巧妙地编织在一起，画中的主人公经常被置于波光粼粼、支离破碎的环境中——是她对于离散状态和归属感的隐喻。

哈珀的作品受到生活、戏剧的视觉语言、绘画史和民俗神话的启发。展览中呈现的大尺幅绘画中的女性角色既是主人公也是哈珀的精神化身，塞尔基是爱尔兰和苏格兰神话中的生物，通过脱下或穿上海豹皮变形于海豹和人的形态之间。她们在水中是海豹，但在陆地上可以脱下海豹皮变成人类，在岸上像人一样跳舞；如果一个塞尔基的海豹皮被偷看她跳舞的男人偷走，她就会深深地爱上对方，但会以人类的形态被困在陆地上，再也无法回到海中。对哈珀来说，她从塞尔基生来就要面对的矛盾境地中汲取灵感，重复在画布上描绘塞尔基也是她处理自身流动的情感与身份的方式。

展览中的一半空间被银色反光材料覆盖，模拟了陆地与水域的双重世界，作品都披着如清晨日落时分的昏暗色调，带着朦胧、斑斓的光，画中形象处在不同的既陌生又熟悉的空间中。哈珀把多重的归属感、身体和情感上的流动与错位，调和在了画面中。正如艺术家曾经所说，她所做的大部分作品都试图框定缺失的存在，用带有同情心和质询的眼光去审视稳定状态，在具有复杂性的主题中来强调矛盾的立场与多重悖论。

展览将在马刺画廊Gallery II持续展出至2023年8月27日。

Rebecca Harper: Blinking through Salt Lashes

July 22–August 27, 2023

Gallery II | SPURS Gallery, D-06, 798 Art Zone, 2 Jiuxianqiao Rd, Chaoyang District, Beijing

SPURS Gallery is pleased to present “Blinking through Salt Lashes,” an exhibition by UK artist Rebecca Harper on July 22, 2023. This will be Harper’s first exhibition with the gallery and will showcase 6 paintings and small installations that she produced in the past year.

Harper was born in 1989 in London, and grew up in Old Isleworth on the flowing River Thames. The concept of water therefore holds an expansive and profound meaning for her, especially as a member of the Jewish diaspora residing in Britain. Water is simultaneously “home” and a vessel through which she connects herself with life, others, and the entire world. To a great extent, Harper uses painting to process and record her “selfhood” and respond to personal and cultural memories, place, literature, and mythologies. She reworks materials that she has garnered through collection and observation, and situates her protagonists in reflective and fragmented environments fluidly constructed from these elements. It is her metaphor for the state of displacement and the attempt at belonging.

Harper’s works are informed by life, the visual language of the theatre, histories of painting and folk imagery. The female figures in the large-scale paintings are both protagonists of the works and Harper’s own spiritual avatar. Selkies are mythical creatures from Scottish and Irish lore, who shapeshift between seals and humans by wearing or shedding seal skins. While they are known to be seals in the sea, they can dance as humans ashore; but if a selkie’s skin is stolen by a human who pries upon her dancing, they are impelled to fall in love with them, forever stuck in human form and separated from the water. Harper is very much inspired by the selkies inherent paradoxical positioning, and through painting selkies repeatedly, explores her own shapeshifting emotions and identities.

Half of the exhibition space will be covered by a reflective silvery surface, mimicking the dual worlds of land and water. The works all bear a dim aura that is resemblant of light found during dusk or dawn — luminescent, hazy and glittering. The figures exist in surroundings that are both familiar and otherworldly. Throughout the images, Harper reconciles the multiplicities of belonging and the fluidity and displacement of the body and the soul. Just as she said, much of what she makes “tries to frame the presence of absence, addressing a space in which to look compassionately at challenging the ideas of settlement, and the often contradictory positions and the multiplicity of paradoxes inherent in themes of ‘otherness’”.

The exhibition will be on view in Gallery II at SPURS Gallery until August 27, 2023.

关于艺术家

瑞贝卡·哈珀，1989年出生于伦敦，现生活和工作于伦敦。她曾先后就读于布里斯托尔西英格兰大学（2008—2011）、伦敦皇家绘画学院（2012—2014）和伦敦Turps艺术学院（2016—2018）；现于坎伯韦尔艺术学院、伦敦艺术大学、伦敦皇家绘画学院，以及布里斯托尔西英格兰大学担任教职。

哈珀已经在Anima Mundi画廊举办了三次英国个展，包括伦敦艺博会、她在Anima Mundi画廊的首展（2019，该展收到了Jackie Wullshlager刊载于《金融时报》的评论），以及“The Waters of Dwelling”（2021）。其他个展包括：“眨眼间，海水浸润睫毛”，马刺画廊，北京（2023）；线上展“NOW”（2020）；Huxley Parlour画廊，伦敦（2019）。近期群展：Fitzrovia画廊，伦敦；Clint Roenisch画廊，多伦多；Natasha Arselan画廊，伦敦；Bloom画廊，圣特罗佩。

哈珀曾获得“关注女性青年大师奖”，并被Artsy列入“最值得关注的女性艺术家”。她还曾于2021年获得John Moores绘画奖，于2018年获得南伦敦美术馆Bloomberg New Contemporaries奖。

哈珀的作品为众多国际公私藏家收藏，包括India Rose James、尤伦斯夫妇和皇家收藏等。

Rebecca Harper was born in London in 1989, where she lives and works. She studied at UWE Bristol 2008, The Royal Drawing School 2013 and Turps Art School 2016; and is now Associate lecturer in Painting at Camberwell College of Arts, The University of the Arts London, Drawing at The Royal Drawing school London, and at UWE Bristol.

Harper has had three UK solo presentations with Anima Mundi Gallery, including The London Art Fair, a debut show at Anima Mundi Gallery in 2019 receiving reviews in the FT by Jackie Wullshlager, and “The Waters of Dwelling” in 2021. Other solo presentations include “Blinking Through Salt Lashes,” SPURS Gallery, Beijing (2023); online showcase “NOW” (2020); Huxley Parlour Gallery, London (2019). Recent group shows: Fitzrovia Gallery, London; Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto; Natasha Arselan Gallery, London; Bloom Gallery, St Tropez.

Harper has been awarded the ‘Focus on the female Young Masters Award’, and selected by Artsy’s Curatorial showcase as ‘First women artists to watch’. She was selected for both The John Moores Painting Prize in 2021 and for Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2018 at the South London Gallery. 

Harper is represented in many private and public collections internationally Including India Rose James, The Ullens and the Royal Collections.

SPURS 正在展出

王加加：永恒的夏天

2023年7月15日—8月27日

Gallery I｜SPURS Gallery，北京市朝阳区酒仙桥路二号院798艺术区D-06

长按二维码关注

↓ 点击“阅读原文”，进入SPURS Gallery官方网站