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20/5/2012

Abdelkader Benchamma

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai

In ‘Corrupted Theories’, Abdelkader Benchamma imposes restrictions and constraints to create delicately executed drawings and sculptures of states of matter, events and explosions. The physical properties of forms succumb to processes of materialisation, or adversely dematerialisation, and alternate between sculptural and liquid states, between figurative and abstract matter.

Submitting elements to tensions, levitations, contrary movements and mute dialogues about space and time, Benchamma creates multiple realities in which the strong influences of science fiction literature and cosmology, as well as existentialist theatre and literary investigations, emerge lucidly. Along with the concepts and theories, aspects of the visual expressions of these ideas filter into his drawing processes – his technique is a fusion of graphic techniques from printing, engraving, landscape and scientific drawing. Benchamma punctuates the notion of multiple and false realities in his work by engaging such a multitude of techniques and drawing materials.

A number of Benchamma’s ‘Sculpture’ drawings, developed from his fascination with monolithic forms and primordial matter, will be on display in this exhibition. As they develop organically on the page, proliferating from their starting points into ambiguous masses, they offer a relief from other subject matter by containing potential but no defined outcome beyond themselves. Suggestions of organic and mineral forms emerge in the fluid patterns, recalling the strength of mountain landscapes or planes of greenery, though nothing is explicit in these scenarios, and the implications are often conflicting.

While Benchamma’s central focus is drawing that hovers between two and three-dimensionality, he occasionally develops ideas into wooden sculpture to further his conceptual questioning of reality and dimension. In wooden parquet floors exhibited in the exhibition, Benchamma breaks wood with all the material properties of a sheet of glass, shattering it in a way that the viewer only notices when standing up close to the work. The technical behaviour of the natural materials, wood and glass, are manipulated and decontexualised to create a surreal and spectacular illusion.

Abdelkader Benchamma (b. France 1975 to Algerian parents) lives and works in Montpellier. In 2011, his monograph ‘Dark Matter’ was published by Galerie du Jour, Paris, in conjunction with his solo exhibition there. In the same year, Benchamma participated in the ‘Future of a Promise’, a Pan-Arab exhibition of 25 contemporary artists at the 54th Venice Biennale, and was commissioned for the ‘Told Untold Retold’ exhibition at the Mathaf Museum, Doha, Qatar. He has had solo exhibitions across Europe as well as in Asia, and has works in public collections, namely the FRAC Languedoc-Roussillon, the Musee de Beaux Arts-Orleans and Artotheque de Pessac in France.

Preview monday 21 may from 7.30 p.m.

Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde
Street 8 A Serkal Avenue, Unit 17 Al Quoz 1 Dubai, U.A.E
Opening hours:
Saturday-Thursday
10am-7pm

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