Harold Ancart
°1980, Brussels (BE) – lives and works in New York (US)
Harold Ancart’s horizon line is limitless. It extends through numerous paintings, photographs, sculptures, and drawings in an inexhaustible exploration of painterly space and color. “In my work, subject matter serves as an alibi for the paint to be pushed into the canvas”, says the artist. His paintings reveal a series of images that are connected to a delirious longing for escape, or connectivity to one’s place. Ancart has pared down his imagery to elemental forms while amplifying scale and tonality.
Clouds, fires, icebergs, and imposing flora are the identifiable shapes he uses to strip landscape painting down to its rudiments. The irreducible qualities of painting, and of drawing, have long been Ancart’s driving concern. Ancart fuses the techniques of both, creating radiant compositions that recall the most animate works of the Color Field painters, while extending their delicate minimalism into an exuberant vision. Ancart recognizes an unquenchable search for a kind of Eden, or escape, as a constant feature of our imaginations. This vast collective ideal is the setting for Harold’s new paintings, in which he discovers the possibilities for transformative experience are not just out “there”, but here, in the arena of painting.
(courtesy of C L E A R I N G)
Harold Ancart has shown his work internationally, at venues such as Centre Pompidou-Metz; The Rubell Family Collection, Miami; David Kordansky, Los Angeles; Yuz Museum, Shanghai; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Arnstrup Fearnley Museum, Oslo; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Wiels, Brussels.
His work is included in the permanent collections of numerous institutions worldwide, including the Fondation Beyeler, Basel; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Copenhagen; Menil Collection, Houston; Musée d’Art Moderne, Paris; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.
Harold Ancart is represented by the following galleries; click through to discover more of his work.