Sheila Hicks, Stéphane Henry,

Yasuhisa Kohyama and Robert Storr

Emerging, Submerging, Reemerging

March 16 - May 18, 2024

galerie frank elbaz, Paris

Emerging, Submerging, Reemerging, 2024
exhibition view, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, Photo : Claire Dorn

galerie frank elbaz is pleased to present Emerging, Submerging, Reemerging, a group exhibition including Stephane Henry, Sheila Hicks, Yasuhisa Kohyama and Robert Storr.

galerie frank elbaz is pleased to announce Emerging, Submerging, Reemerging, featuring paintings and sculpture by Yasuhisa Kohyama, Robert Storr, Sheila Hicks and Stéphane Henry. Each artist is driven by an unquenchable conviction to investigate through direct, physical engagement with materials. Imagination and the act of making is a way of puzzling things out. Similar to the vicissitudes of life, each persists and evolves, emerging, submerging, and reemerging.

Sheila HICKS
Labyrinthe du paradis
, 2024
Linen, cotton, gold threads
26 elements
180 x 160 cm (70 7/8 x 63 in.)
Unique
HIC2024-3501

The Shigaraki ceramic artist Yasuhisa Kohyama mines clay’s potential. He pulls apart mounds of earth, builds it up, sculpts it, cuts it, incises it, and ultimately fires it. His highly refined approach to creating unglazed, sensual forms is about extending traditions rather than a radical departure. The work’s final transformation is determined by placement of the vessels inside the kiln and the intense heat of the wood-burning process. These elements of chance are collaborators in Kohyama’s perpetual honing of his craft in search for ever more powerful, elegant sculpture.

Emerging, Submerging, Reemerging, 2024
exhibition view, galerie frank elbaz, Paris, Photo : Claire Dorn

Sheila Hicks
Freshly unearthed
, 2023-2024
Linen and synthetic fibre
Ø 100 cm (Ø 39 3/8 in.)
Unique
(202320243498)

Yasuhisa KOHYAMA
Homura
, 2022
Stoneware, unglazed wood firing
31 x 25,8 x 12,8 cm (12 1/4 x 10 1/8 x 5 in.)
Unique
KOH2022-3422

Paintings by Robert Storr are intimate inquiries into shape, color and grid templates. Experimenting with the qualities of different paints, he investigates subtle fluctuations in placement and execution of similar images and layering of blocks of color. Hard-edge boundaries and marks soften into textured, painterly statements with rapid improvisations using looser brushstrokes and fast-drying paint. He chooses not to title his works to avoid influencing the viewer’s perception.

Robert Storr
Elbaz 2
, 2024
Acrylic on muslin on board
50,8 x 61 cm (20 x 24 in.)
Unique
STO2024-3441

Stephane Henry
Sédimentation de résine acrylique, rose de Quinacridone, rouge de Quinacridone, rouge de Venise, rouge de Cadmium, rouge de Mars, rouge monoazoico, géode d’améthystes (Maroc), 2024
35 x 20 x 5 cm (13 3/4 x 7 7/8 x 2 in.)
Unique
HEN2024-3454

Sheila Hicks leverages the inexhaustible possibilities of fiber and color. Her constant explorations with pliable lines and linear thinking surprise and delight. How do you negotiate and connect lines? Oftentimes, the investigations involve taking the material into space or sculpting soft masses of fiber before it is turned into a linear, weavable element. The seductive physicality and familiarity of humble threads beckon one to get closer much like a welcoming hand.

Stéphane Henry creates evocative universes of material transformations. Establishing rigorous parameters, he layers mixtures of minerals, colors, chemicals and other materials that interact and morph into sculptural records of movement. These compressed fragments of alchemy appear simultaneously microscopic and cosmic. Despite the artist’s experiments with his capacity to control the process, he benefits from the inevitable accidents that occur along the way enabling new environments to emerge.

When showing these four artists’ work in proximity, the gallery opens the door to discovery. Their art are provocations, invitations to look, compare and to see. As with most abstraction, interpretations are open ended, one suggestion leading to something else. Sometimes, we must lose ourselves (to find ourselves).

Sheila HICKS
Abondance
, 2023-2024
Linen
32 elements
110 x 200 cm (43 1/4 x 78 3/4 in.)
Unique
HIC2023-2024-3500