The one thing about England that makes it so distinct (apart from all the tea lovers and scone eaters) is it's refreshingly depressing weather. So on this fine gloomy day (wow so many paradoxes) I decided to relieve myself of England's thick-set heaviness and take a trip to Saatchi Gallery, one of the favs here at A'naala as you can probably guess, and honestly it was so rewarding. I was on a mission to let the art come to me rather than trying to dive into it, which I usually do so after about 10 minutes on the ground floor I was getting a bit disappointed. Nothing struck me, nothing felt like you know an epiphany. Until.... (insert dramatic pause)
Until I went to the first floor. I walked into a slightly darker space and boom I was engulfed by this huge graphic image on the wall. Mind you my trip to the gallery was quite spontaneous so I didn't really know what was on I just wanted to be surprised and I was. The first image I saw fully was the one below:
I was intrigued by it all. First what struck me was how graphic it was with the clear demarcation and then the risk of the images being lost in themselves, making the decisions within the image incredibly bold. The other hiding images. The surrealism. I thought it so powerful with its impact. It was incredibly striking (these pictures don't do justice trust me). The rest of the images followed the same suite, with large canvases, some taking up the whole width of a wall. All playing with the relationship between what's there and what isn't, with hyper posterized and texturised images placed next to inverted images and creating graphic illusions with pixels all playing with my mind and my ideas of reality. They all shipped me to a different world, a different kind of reality. A dance between man-made space and a hypothetical space. Reflecting on the images, I had thought each of them had represented some kind room in which the subjects and their environment had been encompassed. It was honestly absolutely amazing and trust Saatchi to provide the perfect viewing space with it's stretching rooms and high ceilings, you're sure to get lost in the sauce ;).
Now a little bit about the artist (after a bit of cheeky research):
Henri Barande is a french-born painter and sculptor who has lived in Europe and Africa but worked in Switzerland specifically for 35 years. Barande worked quietly for a long time not wanting his work to be used commercially and thus never shared it with the world to allow him his free creative influence (what a lad). His work conveys the relationship between life and death and he was only recently persuaded by a friend to share his work with the world. Because of this and his aforementioned uncommercial nature, Barande will only exhibit his work once per country. So if he keeps to his word, which I hope he doesn't, this will be his first and last UK exhibition after his last show at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva. The exhibition concludes on the 31st of October so please go and experience this for yourself!! If you do go please let us know, send an email telling us how it was for you!
Thank you for reading and catch you next time. Au revoir :*
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