Michal Korman: Les Fleurs du Jour

Pearl Lam Galleries, Shanghai is delighted to announce the exhibition Les Fleurs du Jour, the first solo show in China by the Slovak painter based in Paris, Michal Korman (b. 1987).

This exhibition heralds a new chapter for Michal Korman and includes an impressive selection of recent paintings of different scales, alluding to a variety of genres, from flowers and still lives to interior scenes, landscapes, gardens, portraits and self-portraits.

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Central to the ethos of this exhibition is the artist’s determination to celebrate the beauty of life in each work by perpetually searching for an ideal expression that is able to recreate a holistic connection with everything that holds importance in his life.

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Answering the difficult question on how to survive and create art in our current aggressive-regressive times, Korman’s proposal is disarmingly simple: to create visual narratives that prompt a deeper connection with nature, nurturing meaningful relationships, and savoring life's simple pleasures.

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From this perspective, his paintings are first and foremost intimate visual conclusions of his daily triumph to defy the rapid changes that are constantly altering our world.

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“A flower is not only an element of décor – it is a fundamental expression of beauty, and nature’s intelligence”, the artist explains. A central part of the exhibition is therefore dedicated to still lifes and flowers captured in their different blooming moments, compositions that allude to themes of renewal and rebirth such as the Vanitas and the ever changing seasons. Though attributes vary in each work, such as the flower species, type of vase, colours and patterns of the tablecloth, there are some consistent elements, which indicate the artist’s deliberate choice of undermining certain clichés referring to this genre. The introduction of elements such as mobile phones, the artist’s favorite books and small sketches depicting pictures of his beloved ones are complementing the scene, actualizing the composition, and making it more contemporary. The boldly coloured, almost graphic composition of the still lifes offer the viewer a new way of experiencing colour, form and space, fostering a level of immediacy that convey a sense of familiarity, warmth and comfort.

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An abundant and focused range of blue and green contrasting the red and orange exude from the second largest series of works present in the exhibition. Luxuriant, overwhelming and surprising, these paintings provide a wholly contemporary take on garden and landscape painting. Aspiring to capture the equilibrium between the natural and artificial, the artist includes various characters in almost every painting, either for the purpose of creating the illusion that the viewer is walking through the picture, or for highlighting the need of reconnecting with beauty and nature whilst living in the city.

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In terms of aesthetic vocabulary, Korman uses predominantly bright, vivid colours and dense visual patterning in most of his paintings in order to add depth or enhance the composition’s harmony. By reducing the medium’s capacity of expression to flat coloured surfaces displayed in reverse order - applying the front-most layer of paint to the back side and building up subsequent layers, with the background coming to the same level - the artist appropriates the subject by fully reconstructing it.

Encompassing all of the characteristic elements of his vocabulary, the new body of works from this exhibition reveals an increased formal and compositional sophistication and a mature artistic vision.

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