Waqas Khan and Timothy Hyunsoo Lee
ARCOmadrid 2015
25 February–1 March 2015
Hall 9 – Booth 9F02
ARCOmadrid
Feria de Madrid Ifema
Av. Partenón, 5
28042 Madrid
T +34 625 06 76 71
hello [at] sabrinaamrani.com
www.sabrinaamrani.com
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Sabrina Amrani is delighted to announce her first participation in ARCOmadrid with a presentation of Waqas Khan and Timothy Hyunsoo Lee in the main section, under the Solo/Duo program, with an in-depth focus on the exposure of artists’ work to a larger audience.
The duo presentation for ARCO 2015, featuring two emerging artists, represents largely different practices tied up together by minimalist conceptions rooted in intimately personal experiences, rather than referring to the broader Western art history of minimalism expressed across all latitudes. Pakistani artist Waqas Khan (b. 1982) and South Korean-American artist Timothy Hyunsoo Lee (b. 1990), both characterized by meticulous geometric practices, explore the limits of their discourse by bringing to this presentation large-scale works.
Amongst the booth selection, the gallery will present the newest piece by Waqas Khan, The Breath of the Compassionate IV, extending further his recent concern with movement and enlarging the experience of the viewer at the same time. Haesik and Dalsun, a new large-scale diptych by Timothy Hyunsoo Lee to be on show, is inspired on the ancient Korean animistic fable of the birth of the sun and the moon, introducing increasing volumes and a more dynamic palette to his work.
Waqas Khan’s meticulous drawings, executed on wasli paper with a drafting Rotring pen in a personal rendition of the Bardhakhat technique, based on 16th-century miniature paintings, are the result of a patient meditation and very intense concentration. A gaze into infinity is achieved through cyclical breaks into spatial planes, simultaneously revealing retinal saturation and demanding absolute attention from the viewer. These fields of precision build on concepts drawn out of Muslim, Hindu and Sufi visual and spiritual practices, brought forth in almost abstract containment, releasing all their potential fragile risk.
Waqas Khan’s work was acquired in 2014 from Sabrina Amrani by the British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Devi Art Foundation in New Delhi after his solo exhibition The Untitled Show at Sabrina Amrani Gallery; his forthcoming group show is the Jameel Prize 3 exhibition at the Sharjah Museum of Islamic Civilization and the artist has been selected for participation in the Dhaka Art Summit 2016.
Timothy Hyunsoo Lee’s watercolors re-stage his own traumatic experience with anxiety disorders, in repetitive diamond-shaped cells, referring to his neurobiological background and translating the biological into the social. Sensorial experience is conveyed onto visual culture through repetition, creating singular movements and shapes that deceive the viewer’s eye. Incorporating narrative elements into abstract surfaces, Hyunsoo Lee’s practice is always formal but yet experiential.
Timothy Hyunsoo Lee’s recent shows include double-sided, a solo show at Sabrina Amrani Gallery in October 2014; the group shows La forme animale at Galerie Venise Cadre in Casablanca; and The Journey at the S. Diplon Ripley Center, The Smithsonian Institution, in Washington DC. Upcoming is the exhibition A Curious Blindness, at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, slated to open in April. The artist was the recipient in 2014 of the VSA Emerging Young Artists Program’s First Prize, sponsored by The Kennedy Center and Volkswagen Group. The artist was awarded the 3rd International Emerging Artist Award in 2014, which earned him representation by Sabrina Amrani.
Concurrent with ARCO is the gallery’s exhibition De Profundis, by Malagasy artist Joël Andrianomearisoa, running through March 28. The exhibition is inspired in Oscar Wilde’s eponymous letter and invites to a journey from light to darkness, a tale of love and despair.
Sabrina Amrani Gallery will host an ARCO Gallery Breakfast, Friday February 27, 10am, at their gallery space in Madrid.
Text by Arie Amaya-Akkermans
Read more about Waqas Khan and Timothy Hyunsoo Lee.
Download a press release and high-resolution images here.
For press inquires, please email hello [at] sabrinaamrani.com.
Preview Waqas Khan’s and Timothy Hyunsoo Lee’s work at Artsy.
Read more about De Profundis by Joël Andrianomearisoa here.
