French photographer Jean-Vincent Simonet creates electrifyingly coloured images, drawing influence from the trangressive novel Les Chants de Maldoror. Momo Okabe hails from Japan, creating images that delve into the country’s social structures, addressing themes of gender and transition. Anne de Vries, born in The Hague, embraces the fluidity of the online world.
Today, all three artists open exhibitions at Foam, Amsterdam. There is a lot that draws these artists together — namely, their predilection for the unusual, often rather surreal image (if in varied forms). While De Vries displays clean-cut digital collages of skyscapes and twisted consumer forms, Simonet creates intense visions where natural meets with peculiar darkness. Okabe chooses deep colour rinses, that pull everyday scenes into the realms of foreboding make-believe.
Simonet is the youngest of the group, born in 1991 and graduating ECAL last year. But, his aesthetic is certainly fully developed and his work bears the signs of an artist who has been crafting a look very carefully. The work here is moody yet energetic, a blue rose looking as though it has been carved from thick dried paint, a vision of vibrant colours and atmospheric lighting.
Okabe’s work is equally distinct, offering the antithetical view of Japan to the rigid formality of its public side. Here we fall down the rabbit hole of Japanese culture, finding ourselves in the dreamlike space that has previously been carved out by Haruki Murakami and Gaspar Noe. Okabe mixes an everyday composition with deep pinks, reds and oranges, rendering everyday scenes a thing of obscure intensity.
Colour remains a focus of De Vries’ work, with soft blues dominating cloud filled digital skies, and sculptures — reminiscent of a football boot, albeit mangled and reformed — formed from intense blacks and electric blues. The Dutch artist plays with ideas of ‘new materialism’ relating to the modern sense of beauty that is attached to commercial good and digital screens.
Momo Okabe: Bible and Dildo, and Jean-Vincent Simone: Maldoror run until 25 October; Anne de Vries runs until 1 November, at Foam, Amsterdam.
