Arms of the Sea: C L E A R I N G x VSF

Various Small Fires is pleased to present Arms Of The Sea in collaboration with CLEARING New York / Brussels / Beverly Hills in its Seoul location. The exhibition by Harold Ancart, Sebastian Black and Loïc Raguénès, is proposed through three axes of work that explore liquidity, rhythm, and magnitude.
Abstraction is central to the exhibition, which works in a similar course as water. As transparent as it is, when accumulated in large quantities, it acquires a mysterious – tenebrous at times – darkness, that doesn’t allow one to see through it all. At first glance, an answer is given to us, but the deeper we dive into the works, the less we know and we open ourselves to interpretation through sensation over rationality.
The same unease awakens due to the lack of information presented on Sebastian Black’s thermal-camera paintings, where the works points at itself as the topic, but the titles give away clues proposed by the artist. Yellow gesture and My Second Selfie were created by using a thermal recognition gadget for iPhone, allowing a digital being to take aesthetic decisions over the artist’s desires. Devoid bodies of water with a loose application of color blocks are presented on Harold Ancart’s sculptures. By removing the liquid, the artwork becomes a pure study of shape and color: a speculative examination of pools, their use and architecture. In the end, once seen up close, any painting becomes just that, a material on a canvas, texture and shade.

In Loïc Raguénès landscapes, the melodic current is interrupted by the emergence of the Sun, in what appears to be a game between background and foreground. Through Raguénès delicate brush strokes, Très Lent [Very Slow] sets a tempo that can also be read as something that is opposite to its title – it actually feels like it is running at a high speed. Not unlike Han River, where quietness is only apparent.