THE DANCE
LUCE GALLERY
Kika Carvalho, Danielle De Jesus, Yaya Yajie Liang, Emmanuel Massillon, Pedro Neves, Thomias Radin, Austin Uzor, Sydney Vernon
Turin, from March 16 to April 28, 2023
Opening: Thursday, March 16, 6:30 pm
Exhibition view, The Dance, 2023, Photo PEPE fotografia, Courtesy the artists and Luce Gallery, Turin
Luce Gallery is pleased to announce “The Dance”, a group show featuring Kika Carvalho, Danielle De Jesus, Yaya Yajie Liang, Emmanuel Massillon, Pedro Neves, Thomias Radin, Austin Uzor, and Sydney Vernon, in Turin from March 16 to April 28, 2023.
Bringing together fifteen artworks, including painting, drawing, and sculpture, “The Dance” embodies the rhythmic movements - both literal and metaphorical - of dancing styles. Deeply embedded in our cultural histories, the expressiveness of movement relates to celebration, ritual, or simply a distinct pattern or tempo. Each artwork on view addresses the various art historical connections, abstract qualities, or symbolic references to dance in the visual arts. The exhibition seeks to explore the myriad ways in which contemporary artists can interpret, layer, or reconsider this classic subject matter.
The dynamism of movement, elegance of patterns, graceful steps, and rhythms of ancestral rituals have provided inspiration to artists for centuries.
In Danielle De Jesus’s Bomba Combativo (2023), a graceful young woman twists her torso, swinging her full scarlet petticoat using Bomba movements. This traditional Puerto Rican dance can trace its roots back to enslaved peoples from Africa and indigenous Taínos tribes. As this type of dance is still performed today, it creates a deeply rooted connection to Puerto Rico’s ancestors and becomes a source of pride and defiance against the colonists who tried to erase their traditions.
Sydney Vernon's Musical Chairs (2023) and Kika Carvalho's Summer Birds They Sing Their Song I and II (2023) also question the dialogue between body and sound, dynamism in space and time. The first, a graphite drawing on paper, focuses on the freedom of movement of a group of people who enjoy playing musical chairs in a scene of leisure outdoors. The two paintings portray the same young black woman, just awake, in a fluid and unpredictable sequence of dance following the birdsong.
The influence of dance is not however limited to the human figure and may often refer to rhythmic or lyrical movements. In Pedro Neves’s diptych, Movement 1 and 2, we see streams and waves of thin lines cascading downward against blue backgrounds meant to represent rainfall. In Movement 1, these lines tap the rooftop, as we imagine them “dancing” across the surface, drumming to nature’s beat.
Nocturnal atmospheres, in which the breath of the wind waves the sea surface in Thomias Radin’s Danse Nocturne (2023) and sways the curtain on the window in Austin Uzor’s Drifting Hibiscus (2023), evoke the floating dimension of dreams.
Dance can also be symbolically representative. A common idiom called “the dance” refers to when we engage in a negotiation of conflicting priorities where balance, skill, and meticulousness are crucial to success. In this sense, many of the works included in this exhibition could reference any number of contemporary conflicts from our everyday relationships to race relations.
In Emmanuel Massillon’s Dog Food (Water Hoses and Fire Trucks) (2022), we see two large ferocious dogs leaping to opposite sides of the canvas ready to attack against an abstracted background of blue, gray, yellow, and red. This scene brings to mind the painful history of civil rights protesters in the 1960s, when police used dogs to attack those who demonstrated peacefully. Here the negotiation between two groups is complex, aggressive, and unfair, leaving viewers to question - how do we even begin to engage with such impossible conflicts?
We can find other affinities between dance and art in the reiterated physical hand’s movement that determines the pictorial gesture, as expressed by Yaya Yajie Liang's Echoing in Time (2023). Masses of color expand on her canvas like sound waves, suggesting rhythmic melodies.
When contemplated as a whole, the artworks in this exhibition express what it means to see, feel, and experience “dance” in contemporary visual art today.
Danielle De Jesus, Bomba Combativo, 2023, acrylic with table cloth, 147.3 x 116.8 cm (58 x 46 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Emmanuel Massillon, Praise and Worship, 2023, wood, glass, pigment, paper collage, metal, and religious figure, 76.2 x 20.3 x 11.4 cm (30 x 8 x 4.5 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Thomias Radin, Danse Nocturne, 2023, oil on linen, artist frame, 112 x 94 x 4.3 cm (44.1 x 37 x 1.7 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Sydney Vernon, Musical Chairs, 2023, graphite on paper, 60.9 x 86.3 cm (24 x 34 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Kika Carvalho (1992, Vitória, Brazil) is a Rio de Janeiro-based visual artist working primarily in painting. Carvalho’s artistic practice and research center around the color blue which recalls both her relationship to her homeland and the history of painting.
Danielle De Jesus (1987, New York, United States) is a Queens-based Nuyorican painter and photographer. Her work is informed by personal experiences with gentrification and displacement in her hometown of Bushwick and encourages rumination about the negative effects of capitalism and colonialism present in urban America.
Yaya Yajie Liang (1995, Henan, China) is a London-based painter. Often pulling inspiration from other artistic sources such as literature and cinema, her works are studies on momentary sensation, perception, storytelling, and materials.
Emmanuel Massillon (1998, Washington D.C., United States) is a Washington D.C. and New York-based African-American conceptual artist. Working across several media, including painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media, and installation, Massillon explores the complexity of race, identity, and culture while fostering conversations about politically charged topics and realities of daily life.
Pedro Neves (1997, Imperatriz, Brazil) is a Belo Horizonte-based visual artist working in painting, sculpture, and photography. His work stems from the need to rethink the history of Brazil by increasing the representation of traditional cultures and daily family life, while simultaneously confronting issues of colonialism and imperialism that still plague the country.
Thomias Radin (1993, Les Abymes, Guadeloupe) is a Berlin-based painter. With a background as a curator and artistic director of dance, Radin’s artistic practice equates the movement and feel of dance with the process of painting, referring to it as an “intuitive freedom of expression”.
Austin Uzor (1991, Nigeria) is a New York-based painter and drawing artist. His work explores the “unknown” by examining psychological spaces, feelings, and alternate realities in search of existential truths, often focusing on the traumas related to displacement.
Sydney Vernon (1995, Prince George’s County, Maryland, United States) is a New York-based visual artist working across multiple types of media including painting, video, and performance. Her practice is heavily inspired by her family history, Black-American culture, and in-depth investigations of self.
Yaya Yajie Liang, Echoing in Time, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 80 cm (23.6 x 31.4 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
The Dance
Kika Carvalho, Danielle De Jesus, Yaya Yajie Liang, Emmanuel Massillon, Pedro Neves, Thomias Radin, Austin Uzor, Sydney Vernon
Luce Gallery
Turin, from March 16 to April 28, 2023
Opening: Thursday, March 16, 6:30 pm
Largo Montebello 40, Italy
Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 3:30 - 7:30 pm
+39 011 18890206 / info@lucegallery.com
Instagram: lucegallery
Online videos featuring exhibition walkthroughs: www.lucegallery.com/video.php
Press Office: THE KNACK STUDIO / Tamara Lorenzi
tamara@theknackstudio.com / +39 347 0712934
info@theknackstudio.com / www.theknackstudio.com
THE DANCE
LUCE GALLERY
Kika Carvalho, Danielle De Jesus, Yaya Yajie Liang, Emmanuel Massillon, Pedro Neves, Thomias Radin, Austin Uzor, Sydney Vernon
Turin, from March 16 to April 28, 2023
Opening: Thursday, March 16, 6:30 pm
Exhibition view, The Dance, 2023, Photo PEPE fotografia, Courtesy the artists and Luce Gallery, Turin
Luce Gallery is pleased to announce “The Dance”, a group show featuring Kika Carvalho, Danielle De Jesus, Yaya Yajie Liang, Emmanuel Massillon, Pedro Neves, Thomias Radin, Austin Uzor, and Sydney Vernon, in Turin from March 16 to April 28, 2023.
Bringing together fifteen artworks, including painting, drawing, and sculpture, “The Dance” embodies the rhythmic movements - both literal and metaphorical - of dancing styles. Deeply embedded in our cultural histories, the expressiveness of movement relates to celebration, ritual, or simply a distinct pattern or tempo. Each artwork on view addresses the various art historical connections, abstract qualities, or symbolic references to dance in the visual arts. The exhibition seeks to explore the myriad ways in which contemporary artists can interpret, layer, or reconsider this classic subject matter.
The dynamism of movement, elegance of patterns, graceful steps, and rhythms of ancestral rituals have provided inspiration to artists for centuries.
In Danielle De Jesus’s Bomba Combativo (2023), a graceful young woman twists her torso, swinging her full scarlet petticoat using Bomba movements. This traditional Puerto Rican dance can trace its roots back to enslaved peoples from Africa and indigenous Taínos tribes. As this type of dance is still performed today, it creates a deeply rooted connection to Puerto Rico’s ancestors and becomes a source of pride and defiance against the colonists who tried to erase their traditions.
Sydney Vernon's Musical Chairs (2023) and Kika Carvalho's Summer Birds They Sing Their Song I and II (2023) also question the dialogue between body and sound, dynamism in space and time. The first, a graphite drawing on paper, focuses on the freedom of movement of a group of people who enjoy playing musical chairs in a scene of leisure outdoors. The two paintings portray the same young black woman, just awake, in a fluid and unpredictable sequence of dance following the birdsong.
The influence of dance is not however limited to the human figure and may often refer to rhythmic or lyrical movements. In Pedro Neves’s diptych, Movement 1 and 2, we see streams and waves of thin lines cascading downward against blue backgrounds meant to represent rainfall. In Movement 1, these lines tap the rooftop, as we imagine them “dancing” across the surface, drumming to nature’s beat.
Nocturnal atmospheres, in which the breath of the wind waves the sea surface in Thomias Radin’s Danse Nocturne (2023) and sways the curtain on the window in Austin Uzor’s Drifting Hibiscus (2023), evoke the floating dimension of dreams.
Dance can also be symbolically representative. A common idiom called “the dance” refers to when we engage in a negotiation of conflicting priorities where balance, skill, and meticulousness are crucial to success. In this sense, many of the works included in this exhibition could reference any number of contemporary conflicts from our everyday relationships to race relations.
In Emmanuel Massillon’s Dog Food (Water Hoses and Fire Trucks) (2022), we see two large ferocious dogs leaping to opposite sides of the canvas ready to attack against an abstracted background of blue, gray, yellow, and red. This scene brings to mind the painful history of civil rights protesters in the 1960s, when police used dogs to attack those who demonstrated peacefully. Here the negotiation between two groups is complex, aggressive, and unfair, leaving viewers to question - how do we even begin to engage with such impossible conflicts?
We can find other affinities between dance and art in the reiterated physical hand’s movement that determines the pictorial gesture, as expressed by Yaya Yajie Liang's Echoing in Time (2023). Masses of color expand on her canvas like sound waves, suggesting rhythmic melodies.
When contemplated as a whole, the artworks in this exhibition express what it means to see, feel, and experience “dance” in contemporary visual art today.
Danielle De Jesus, Bomba Combativo, 2023, acrylic with table cloth, 147.3 x 116.8 cm (58 x 46 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Emmanuel Massillon, Praise and Worship, 2023, wood, glass, pigment, paper collage, metal, and religious figure, 76.2 x 20.3 x 11.4 cm (30 x 8 x 4.5 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Thomias Radin, Danse Nocturne, 2023, oil on linen, artist frame, 112 x 94 x 4.3 cm (44.1 x 37 x 1.7 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Sydney Vernon, Musical Chairs, 2023, graphite on paper, 60.9 x 86.3 cm (24 x 34 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
Kika Carvalho (1992, Vitória, Brazil) is a Rio de Janeiro-based visual artist working primarily in painting. Carvalho’s artistic practice and research center around the color blue which recalls both her relationship to her homeland and the history of painting.
Danielle De Jesus (1987, New York, United States) is a Queens-based Nuyorican painter and photographer. Her work is informed by personal experiences with gentrification and displacement in her hometown of Bushwick and encourages rumination about the negative effects of capitalism and colonialism present in urban America.
Yaya Yajie Liang (1995, Henan, China) is a London-based painter. Often pulling inspiration from other artistic sources such as literature and cinema, her works are studies on momentary sensation, perception, storytelling, and materials.
Emmanuel Massillon (1998, Washington D.C., United States) is a Washington D.C. and New York-based African-American conceptual artist. Working across several media, including painting, photography, sculpture, mixed media, and installation, Massillon explores the complexity of race, identity, and culture while fostering conversations about politically charged topics and realities of daily life.
Pedro Neves (1997, Imperatriz, Brazil) is a Belo Horizonte-based visual artist working in painting, sculpture, and photography. His work stems from the need to rethink the history of Brazil by increasing the representation of traditional cultures and daily family life, while simultaneously confronting issues of colonialism and imperialism that still plague the country.
Thomias Radin (1993, Les Abymes, Guadeloupe) is a Berlin-based painter. With a background as a curator and artistic director of dance, Radin’s artistic practice equates the movement and feel of dance with the process of painting, referring to it as an “intuitive freedom of expression”.
Austin Uzor (1991, Nigeria) is a New York-based painter and drawing artist. His work explores the “unknown” by examining psychological spaces, feelings, and alternate realities in search of existential truths, often focusing on the traumas related to displacement.
Sydney Vernon (1995, Prince George’s County, Maryland, United States) is a New York-based visual artist working across multiple types of media including painting, video, and performance. Her practice is heavily inspired by her family history, Black-American culture, and in-depth investigations of self.
Yaya Yajie Liang, Echoing in Time, 2023, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 80 cm (23.6 x 31.4 in), Courtesy the artist and Luce Gallery, Turin
The Dance
Kika Carvalho, Danielle De Jesus, Yaya Yajie Liang, Emmanuel Massillon, Pedro Neves, Thomias Radin, Austin Uzor, Sydney Vernon
Luce Gallery
Turin, from March 16 to April 28, 2023
Opening: Thursday, March 16, 6:30 pm
Largo Montebello 40, Italy
Hours: Tuesday to Friday, 3:30 - 7:30 pm
+39 011 18890206 / info@lucegallery.com
Instagram: lucegallery
Online videos featuring exhibition walkthroughs: www.lucegallery.com/video.php
Press Office: THE KNACK STUDIO / Tamara Lorenzi
tamara@theknackstudio.com / +39 347 0712934
info@theknackstudio.com / www.theknackstudio.com
