Art that Bends the Mind: Fiumano Clase Gallery at London Art Fair

Crystal Bennett, Trebuchet, January 19, 2018

Contemporary gallerists Fiumano Clase showcase their chosen few at the 2018 London Art Fair.

Having joined forces in recent months to form Fiumano Clase Gallery, contemporary gallerists Andrés Clase and Francesca Fiumano bring an eclectic mix to this year's London Art Fair.  Among their selected artists are Nicole Wassall, Herman Lohe, Joakim Allgulander and Sam Burford.

Suffused with atmosphere and offering a sense of place that transgresses the medium of his works, multi-disciplinary artist Herman Lohe's discombobulating perspectives play with notions of ambiguity and appearance. With nature as his central muse, layered landscapes hint at conflations of the internal and external, inviting contemplations on universal human themes and their symbiotic relationship with the natural world.

Akin to Lohe, artist Joakim Allgulander frequently draws on nature as an influence, particularly referencing moments of transience and duration. Snow heavy on a branch; a ripple on water; a snowman, optimistic, bathed in winter sunlight. Allgulander addresses oppositional dynamics in his work, presenting the interplay between objects with a refreshing, light touch that echoes the subtlety of nature's ability to shape-shift.

 

Shifting gears to the cinematic, Sam Burford's work employs on-the-nose titles juxtaposed with dreamlike, textural images, combining to invite a closer look. From smeary, fluid images of Ingrid Bergman that find parallel with the inkblots of psychoanalysis, to abstract, dystopian landscapes in synthetic mediums, Burford's work plunges into shades of retro-futurism.

 

Similarly investigative of futuristic themes, the fascinating work of multi-disciplinary artist Nicole Wassall examines the arena of neuroscience in relation to art. Her resulting images play on the processing powers of the mind by re-routing visual information received by the brain onto different and unexpected neural pathways. Often deceptively stark, Wassall's work literally takes the simple act of looking at contemporary art to a new level of consciousness. See it to believe it.