Love for Evol at Scope New York Art Show

by baad lamb

Not all the art at mega art shows is gimmicky, flashy, retro, shiny, LED backlit, or video.


Or a combination of all the above.

Sometimes the most moving pieces startle with their simplicity.

Evol, born in Heilbronn, Germany and living and working in Berlin, paints architectural details and scenes on found cardboard. Like musicians who claim it’s the spaces between the notes that separate capable musicianship from true artistry, Evol’s deft use of the unpainted cardboard areas are what makes his four Scope show contributions so stunning. These restrained architectural compositions are executed with slow and careful precision using a mask-and-spray process, yielding an extremely convincing photo-realist result.
More photos after the jump...


 

From an interview with Carson Chan , included in the catalog (pdf) of the exhibition at Wilde Gallery, Berlin, May 1 to May 31, 2009:

“I’ve always loved walking around the city, looking for architectural moments that spoke to me. The surface of the city is something on which I can communicate both to a small circle of street artists, and to society in general. I always noticed these grey electrical boxes as I walked around Berlin, and I just had an impulse to do some­thing with them. I also like that they’re usually pretty dirty, that they accumulate color and texture simply from sitting outside. The same goes for the cardboard pieces. The cardboard I use is all found material. It has markings from use and neglect: bits of tape, writing, scratches, signage. These accidental markings signify experiences that have little to do with the cardboard box’s intended use.”

You can see why I chose Evol as my Scope favorite.