GOMMAAR GILLIAMS

Gommaar Gilliams' paintings are timeless. Speaking to a language ingrained in our visual culture from antiquity to the present, they reference the power of storytelling found in cave paintings, tapestry, astrology, and medieval illuminations. There is a universality in this language that is essential to Gilliams; how stories, parables, fables, myths, and legends speak to a wider understanding of human existence. In these paintings, perhaps a fox is not just a fox, but a representative of home, comfort, of safety. Gilliams introduces us to many such characters as they flit between paintings, but endeavours to keep the narrative open. The viewer is left to interpret the sweeping knights, leaping hares and homely foxes. The pre-prepared fabrics are embedded with paint, machine-stitched and painted again before the works are stretched and framed. The soft imagery collides with the rough and ready use of paint, making the works dynamic and textural, reminiscent of peeling Italian fresco walls. Duality is important to the artist, not only internally to the works but in how they connect with one another. Gilliams' work leaves us wondering, weaving our own remembered stories with the painted surface.

Gommaar Gilliams b. 1982 Lier, Belgium, lives and works in Hasselt, Belgium. Shows include; The Cabin LA Presents: A Curated Flashback, Green Family Art Foundation, Dallas, TX, 2023; Residency with SMAC Gallery, Cape Town, SA, 2022; Gommaar Gilliams: Under Cassiopeia, De Buck Gallery, New York, NY, 2022; Biennale Van de Schilderkunst, MUDEL Museum Aan de Leie en de Stroom, BE, 2022; Kunstenfestival Aardenburg, Aardenburg, NL, 2022; ‘Sunkissed, Moonlit’, Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE, 2022; ‘If you were dreaming’, De Buck Gallery, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, FR, 2021; ‘What do you want?’, Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, Be, 2021; ‘Fly me to the moon’, NIL Gallery, Paris, FR, 2021; ‘Only for you’, ArtBorgloon, Borgloon, BE, 2020; ‘L’heure bleue’, Gallery Sofie Van de Velde & PLUS-ONE Gallery, Antwerp, BE, 2020; amongst others.