Paris Internationale - © Paris Internationale
Vacancy - © Paris Internationale
Vacancy
Press release

Safe Spaces

Gallery Vacancy is pleased to present artist Henry Curchod’s solo project Safe Spaces at Paris Internationale 2023, Booth 2.3. Featuring the artist’s latest venture, the presentation showcases a series of large-scale paintings to investigate the notion of “safe space”, a term brought into the public discourse from the psychotherapist’s room. Safe Spaces metabolises Curchod’s subversive observations from daily encounters and his continued engagement with painterly perspectives to explore the concept of spatial barriers dominant in our everyday life––mainly the separation of “inside/outside” and transition between spaces–– as well as to question of “trust”, socially, culturally and politically.

In this presentation, Curchod’s multitudinal storytelling technique unfolds through his manoeuvring of spatial construction and perspectives, suggesting a non-static position between the insider and the outsider, crossing boundaries to contemplate the conformity nature of social norms. Stemming from the artist’s Kurdish-Iranian heritage and experiences living in different parts of the world, Glow (2023) and Recipe for success (2023) illuminate the sense of mobility and dynamism. Within the designated shallow space and parallelogrammical frames, the central figures are captured in the moments of physically trespassing wall-like barriers, indicating whimsical scenes of fleeing across different realms. Further accentuated by his striking colour palette and signature shading technique with oil sticks and charcoal, these give his paintings a filtered impression of faux naivety. Yet compelling as they are to a child’s portrayal of the world devoid of linear perspective, this same intense innocence is the guiding thread into multiple layers of sardonic allegories and metaphors that chronicle contemporary events. Notably, in Beginning of the end (2023), which captures a clownish figure handing out candies to a group of children at the corner of an alley, the painting is, in fact, specific in its reference to the situation in Mexico where drug cartels are recruiting young children into a life of crime.

Inspired by Persian miniature paintings, Curchod synchronises the crowded architecture of spaces and perspectives into one erratic, eclectic, and uncertain view. Much as a canvas is the revelatory space of an artist’s inner consciousness, each painting is a portal to an imagined realm for the viewer. The artist’s practice composes a unique fusion of narrative figuration and dry wit, coinciding with the interplay between various spatial treatments. This is evident in Tissue Session (2023), which, like many of his other paintings in the presentation, is a parable for the psychological disquietude we associate with living in contemporary society. Here, Curchod draws an uncanny likeness from the concept of “tissue meeting” —commonly referred to as an informal presentation of creative work to a client in the design and advertising industry— to a patient’s confession to a doctor in psychotherapy. The protagonist has no recognisable facial features, only to be seen as an anonymous soul revealing so much of his innate being that his organs are radically pouring into view. Curchod limns a cynical wordplay to the word ‘tissue’, a reference to both our bodily cells and that thing used to dry our tears. For what seems an intense and emotional scene, the practitioner in a white cloak sits unperturbed, stiffer than the seaweed curtains beside him, as the figure rips itself apart.

Safe Spaces carves out a site of visual experience filled with surprise and bewilderment where rich symbols, daily observations, and social phenomena intersect. Elaborating on the paintings’ disorienting perspectives, the presentation format stages its viewers in a self-conscious space. As we constantly recalibrate and negotiate with the arena of display, such adaptive response reconciles with our always-in-flux state of being.

About the Artist

Henry Curchod

Henry Curchod, born in 1992 in Palo Alto, US, now lives and works in London. Curchod received his Bachelor’s degree from the University of New South Wales in 2014. He creates dynamic scenes filled with tension and theatricality, exploring his diverse cultural background of Kurdish-Iranian descent and Western upbringing on both a personal and a global level. In his figurative painting practice, Curchod introduces unorthodox perspectives and compositions, illuminating a dreamlike, whimsical, and anecdotic reality.

Solo exhibitions include: Safe Spaces, Gallery Vacancy at Paris Internationale, 2023; Hugging a tree is like kissing a dog, Shoot the Lobster, New York, 2023; Trouble on the Event Horizon, Mamoth, London, 2023; Rice is god’s dandruff, Chauffeur, Sydney, 2022; Set Your Friends Free, Mamoth, London, 2021; Sharing the Sky, Sumer Gallery, Tauranga, 2021; Inside Head, Outside Head, Martin Browne Gallery, Paddington, 2021. Recent group exhibitions include: Vacation II, Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai, 2022; In Between, Spurs Gallery, Beijing, 2022; Distance is Comfort, Chauffeur, Sydney, 2022; Of Foxes and Ghosts, Mamoth, London, 2022.

Curchod was the recipient of the R&F Residency, New York, 2023; the PPP/Oostmeijer Residency, Amsterdam, 2023; and finalist for the Ramsay Art Prize, 2023; the Sulman Prize, 2023; and the Brett Whiteley Travelling Art Scholarship, 2021.

Henry Curchod at Paris Internationale 2023 with Gallery Vacancy from Shanghai - © Photo by Jim Parry, Paris Internationale

Artist Henry Curchod

Installation view
Vacancy - © Paris Internationale
Henry Curchod, Airport Bar, 2023, Oil and Charcoal on linen, 200x170 cm 78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in - © Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai  
Photo: Ollie Hammick, Paris Internationale

◼️Airport bar, 2023

Oil and charcoal on linen
200 x 170 cm (78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in)

Airport Bar (2023) detailed a group of stranded pilots pouncing on and enjoying every coconut on a tropical island, oblivious that their rescue, a cargo ship, is sailing further into the distance. The work’s title considers something of a twist to the usual setting of an airport bar, where on-duty pilots are strictly off-bound. By doing away with the pictorial plane’s linear perspective—reminiscent of the two-dimensional space of Persian Painting—for a heightened view, not only does Curchod grant us a full display of these uniformed people in their drunken stupor, but he renders the darkly funny idea that the plane flyers feel the most freedom and empowerment in a place away from civilisation. The viewer gleefully interrogates from a god-like perspective, knowing that this fretful beach party scene for the pilots shall turn into a moment of regret once it is over.

Vacancy - © Paris Internationale

◼️Life boat, 2023

Oil and charcoal on linen
200 x 170 cm (78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in)

Despite the narrative intent of his storied paintings, Curchod never suggests what comes after. In Life Boat (2023), for instance, a business-attired man is seen clasping tightly onto a greenish briefcase as he bodyslams into an orange lifeboat floating on treacherous waters. Given that it is common knowledge that all personal belongings should be left behind in an emergency evacuation, here, the character willingly takes a toll on his self-preservation for the mores of capitalism. We may never know the consequences of his actions. Only that the imagery’s comedic jab at the magnitude of one’s dedication to work and possession—where bodily reflex is locked to protect them at all cost—is a chorus of our misplaced values under the materialistic doctrine. Nothing is funnier than such unhappiness.

Henry Curchod, Life Boat, 2023, Oil and charcoal on linen, 200x170 cm 78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in - © Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai  
Photo: Ollie Hammick, Paris Internationale
Vacancy - © Paris Internationale
Henry Curchod Living under the flight path, 2023 Oil and charcoal on linen 200 x 170 cm 78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in - © Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai  
Photo: Ollie Hammick, Paris Internationale

◼️Living under the flight path, 2023

Oil and charcoal on linen
200 x 170 cm (78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in)

With this painting, the artist stakes out his position as a keen observer of contemporary society and an opponent of what he sees as its ills. Here, a low-flying plane looms over the painting’s upper composition. Under its gigantic shadow, two men idly nap in their backyard as their barbecue fire flares. Though not without humour, Curchod drives a harsh gaze at Australia’s hostile housing situation, whereby lower socioeconomic groups, including refugees, were forced to reside near airports or flight paths. In this case, the painting’s tragicomic implication is that regardless of what lies ahead for the plane – a free range between crashing and landing – the men have learnt to block out the undesirableness of their current condition.

Vacancy - © Paris Internationale
Gallery Vacancy Paris Internationale Henry Curchod Tissue Session 2023 - © Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai  
Photo: Ollie Hammick, Paris Internationale

Henry Curchod
Tissue session, 2023
Oil and charcoal on linen
200 x 170 cm
78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in

Henry Curchod Beginning of the end, 2023 Oil and charcoal on canvas 200 x 170 cm 78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in - © Courtesy of the Artist and Gallery Vacancy, Shanghai  
Photo: Ollie Hammick, Paris Internationale

Henry Curchod
Beginning of the end, 2023
Oil and charcoal on canvas
200 x 170 cm
78 3/4 x 66 7/8 in

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