Francesca Mollett: Halves

GRIMM is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new works by London-based artist Francesca Mollett on view at the Amsterdam location from 2 June to 22 July, 2023. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition with GRIMM since joining the gallery in 2022. The opening of the exhibition coincides with Amsterdam Art Week (31 May - 4 June).

On view in the exhibition are a group of paintings engaged with the elusive nature of reflections, grappling with the visual phenomena that occurs at the meeting point of two surfaces and the ensuant disintegration of their physical boundaries into disembodied, abstract properties. The paintings often take as their starting point site-specific features of Amsterdam’s built and natural environment, for instance, the glossy dark paint adorning the doors of Amsterdam’s town houses, which extends the shimmering flow of water along its tree-lined canals. These reflective surfaces are sites of exchange, both with one another and also with the city’s inhabitants, acting as physical constants that mirror the fleeting daily routines of passers-by and the rise and fall of light throughout the day.

In her latest body of work, these impressions are given painterly form across a series of canvases varying in scale, tackling the minutiae and the expanse of her subject. Looking beyond any metaphorical or narrative allusion associated with the places depicted, the artist is instead concerned with the visual spectacle that occurs at these intersections – the competing and contradictory qualities of opacity and transparency in the architectural surroundings, where materials take on the qualities of the things around them, such as the glittering movement of sunlight on the surface of water or wood, merged into cascading, weightless light and shape. This inherent duality of appearance and concealment is hinted at in the exhibition’s title, Halves, connoting the doubling or splitting quality of reflection. The title of the exhibition originates from a poem by Ella Duffy from her collection New Hunger (2020). A new poem from Duffy titled Surfacing has been written in response to this exhibition.

The paintings on view in Amsterdam continue a preoccupation within Mollett’s practice of responding to a place as a way to organise ideas about painting, finding subjects that serve as visual metaphors for what painting can do. The question of what to extract from an image begins with Mollett making charcoal drawings. She follows by drawing with charcoal directly onto the canvas, adding fluid washes of acrylic paint that define a territory for an initial composition. Multiple layers of oil paint are applied in varying consistencies to create depth and texture, using brushes, a palette knife and cloth, to create passages that form a precise language and atmosphere. During this process, adherence to the source image is often left behind, as the painting itself presents new openings and possibilities to be explored. As such, the method becomes cyclical and collage-like, drawing upon both external and internal visual stimuli, painting in between the gaps of intention and intuition.