Exhibition
26 September 2024–9 November 2024
Summer's Gone
Custot Gallery Dubai
Summer’s Gone brings forth a sense of seasonal nostalgia, held together by a selection of works meant to take the viewer back to their fondest summer memories. From Etel Adnan’s sun, to Fabienne Verdier’s nocturnal summer escapades, and Landon Metz’s sun-washed pigments, visitors are invited to indulge in an estival reminiscence.
Highlights of the show include two major ceramics from Lebanese artist Etel Adnan. The first titled Staring at the Sun (2021), this work represents one of the foundational figures of Etel Adnan’s life work: the Sun. Having been fascinated with the very vivid sun of Beirut since an early age, this work exemplifies the strong bond between the artist feels and the nature around her. Another example of this bond is the the second ceramic, titled Mont Tamalpais II (2019), picturing the northern Californian icon which has become an integral part of Adnan’s artistic cosmology, as seen in her book Journey to Mount Tamalpais.
Emanating from past collaborations between Christie’s Middle East and Waddington Custot, paintings by Landon Metz and Fabienne Verdier are on view. Verdier’s Escapade Nocturne retraces an energy line in the style of her walking paintings, reminiscing on the blues of summer night skies. Metz’s paintings showcase how, with an elegant precision, Landon bends the liquid form across his carefully prepared canvases. For a moment, a dance between the fluid's dynamics and the intention of the painter happens, a dance in which Landon sets the tempo.
Kenia Almaraz Murillo’s La Queue De L’Escorpion (2023) comes straight from a dream in which Kenia, walking in a desert, comes across a scorpion that has lost its tail. Presumably attacked, it is now blind, without its tail or pincers lying beside it. Kenia then tries to heal it, and suddenly has a strong vision of the scorpion's tail floating above its body, as if levitating and ready to reform onto the body. It is this levitation of the scorpion, almost schematic, that Kenia wanted to transcribe with this dancing scorpion figure.
A monumental six-meter-wide sculpture by Belgian sculptor Arnaud Rivieren is displayed. The Dubai-based artist focuses on repurposing scavenged material found in steelyards of the UAE, breathing new life into them through a lengthy transformation process, reforming it into an imposing stainless steel Mangrove (2023).
Ian Davenport’s Chromascopic (2014) is based on an intricate study of colour in nature. Created through reference images of picturesque landscapes, colours are then isolated and poured vertically one by one, removing all sense of figuration, and instead focusing on transcribing a colour palette. It’s this abstract process which enables us to reflect on the profound impact colour has on us.