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NMAG is honoured to present a solo presentation by Jamal Nxedlana, together with a special edition by Desiré van den Berg at Unseen Photo Fair, Amsterdam.

Unseen Photo Fair
19.09 - 22.09.2024
Booth nr 61

Jamal Nxedlana

With a special edition by:
Desiré van den Berg

ONLINE CATALOGUE

14.09.2024 - 27.10.2024

Opening Saturday September 14th from 5 - 8 pm
Gallery Season Afterparty 8pm - late

No Man’s Art Gallery is honoured to present A scallop has two hundred eyes; twelve paintings on what they might see, the first solo exhibition by Dutch painter Tobias Thaens with the gallery. Affirming the continuous interconnectedness of the natural and the artistic, Thaens builds androgynous worlds, wherein organic matter becomes interwoven in the threads of sensitivity and vulnerability. 

As butterflies drink the tears of crocodiles, turtles, and birds, the observer is invited to an intimate meeting between two different entities - nature and culture, biology and poetry - all trying to make sense of the reality surrounding them. In a macrocosm and on canvas, through his painting practice, Thaens instils a shade of romance in the vastness of the everyday.

Drawing inspiration from Canadian poet Anne Carson, Thaens aligns himself with the author in an attempt to “entertain a question, without conclusion but not without interest,” to break free from the code that instrumentalises how we describe and perceive the world. While Carson’s practice lies in the realm of language, for Thaens, it is in imagery. Upholding the idea of broadening a space for poetry and for art, whereby one is able to make connections beforehand invisible, is the thread that pulls Thaens to Carson’s writing and allows him to perform a transfer of an in-between space – the space betwixt blossoming and decaying – from page onto canvas, from a word to a brushstroke, from a memory to a landscape. 

Thaens finishes his paintings without ever finishing them; he constructs them amidst juxtapositions and parallels, worlds and entities, and leaves them to breathe, to continue their cycle of existence right then and there. They allude to a multiplicity of meanings and beings. This fluid world of the in-between, is an invitation to an indwelling dialogue between the artist and that which is being painted; oftentimes enveloping nonhuman creatures, such as arthropods, crustaceans, and fungi, encouraging conversations between dissimilar others. 

Whether a friend’s bag or the colour of their hair, the details embedded in his mental archive open up the doors to the artist’s exploration of viscerality, ephemerality, and intimacy, in an attempt to broaden, extend, and stretch. For Thaens, this necessitates a process whereby he imagines the nonhuman others perceiving, experiencing, and remaining just as he perceives, experiences, and remains. In Whisper (Lieveling), he paints a scene upon which he imagines how a bat would see with echolocation. By and of itself, the abstract nature of Thaens’ paintings requires the viewer to look for points of departure, or rather – the entities of departure, so as to grasp fibres of familiarity and existence with the work. Red strokes flowing through a friend’s hair inch close towards vesicles travelling in the intercellular fluid, while the texture of their bag edges onto an enchanting exoskeleton. And yet, if the work does not contain the initial object anymore, what does it become? 

As a landscape of eyes touching eyes and layers peeking at layers, A scallop has two hundred eyes; twelve paintings on what they might see can be read through the imagery of skin. Shimmering, translucent, reflecting light just as scales, singing in rubato, peeling layers of comfort, injecting a meeting of others, demanding an inquisitive gaze.

Text by Zuzia Szatkowska

A scallop has two hundred eyes; twelve paintings on what they might see extends to both gallery locations: Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327 and Bos en Lommerweg 88 and runs until October 27th 2024. For more information or inquiries contact info@nomansart.com

Tobias Thaens (Eindhoven, NL, 1999) is a painter who graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the AKI Academy for Art & Design, Enschede, the Netherlands, in 2021 and completed his residency at De Ateliers, Amsterdam, in 2023. Thaens’ paintings offer the artist’s reflections on the hard contrasts between form and function, which dissolve into one another uninterrupted, revealing the fluidity of existence and the interconnectedness of distinct energies.

Through a deep fascination with animals utilising camouflage, the artist brings to light a shared visual language of organisms within an ecosystem, where colours and shapes follow each other and the agency they hold changes over time. An androgynous world where nature dynamically alters its skin pattern and colour, a series of perceptive and emotional depths lay ahead. This exploration bleeds out into the intimate experience, blurring the line between biology and poetics. Through this permeation, Thaens instils in the viewer a lasting curiosity for the discourse of perception and interpretation.

Since graduating from AKI, Thaens has participated in exhibitions at Ballroom Projects, BE, Woonhuis, NL, De Ateliers, NL, and Gerard Hofland (NL).

ONLINE CATALOGUE

25.07.2024 - 08.09.2024

Opening Thursday July 25th from 5 - 8 pm

No Man’s Art Gallery is honoured to present Cutting Silk, the third solo exhibition by South African painter Mia Chaplin with the gallery. Through expressive paintings and sculptures characterised by rich impasto surfaces and visible brushwork, Cutting Silk celebrates resilience, metamorphosis, and the ability to find beauty in brokenness.

One of many myths in Ovid’s Metamorphoses tells the story of the goddess Diana, who enjoyed her sanctuary in the heart of a secluded forest—a space she fiercely protected. One day, the young hunter Actaeon accidentally stumbled upon her bathing with her nymphs. Diana, upset by the intrusion, turns Actaeon into a deer, stripping him of his human identity and ability to defend himself. His own hunting dogs, failing to recognise their master, chased and killed him.

Chaplin references this myth through "Losing, Finding, Losing Again" (2024), the first painting encountered upon entering the main gallery. This contemporary rendition of Titian's Diana and Actaeon shows oil-painted bodies that disintegrate and blend into their surroundings. The intruder's body is left out of the frame, as if the artist makes the viewer complicit, while the bodies of the bathers themselves become fluid and concealed, hiding by morphing into each other. 

The act of breaking down something, to form something new, lays the foundation for Cutting Silk, drawing parallels with the adaptive camouflage of insects and animals that safeguard themselves through transformation. Chaplin’s bodies evolve into landscapes and landscapes engulf bodies.  “Much like the giant leaf-tailed gecko blending with its branch or the silkworm cocooning itself during transformation, these works illustrate how vulnerability can find safety through the act of becoming something new.” (Mia Chaplin). 

The eponymous large sculptural painting, suspended from the ceiling and almost dripping with paint residue, alludes to a fisherman’s net freshly pulled from the sea, with its remnants clinging to it. Moving around the piece, one grapples with one’s own role in relation to it. Am I the one caught in the net, or am I the predator? Chaplin plays with the tension between these roles throughout the show. She seduces us with scenes of intimacy, fragility and of apparent captivity on the brink of a shift. 

Simultaneously, the net and wired works are reminiscent of a veil, an object often used in art history to symbolise a divide between public and private sphere, evoking mystery and concealment as well as the unknown. It denotes transition as a passage between different states of consciousness. The veil, as a symbol for psychological layers, can convey hidden aspects of emotions and experiences, much like a fishing net thrown deep gathering both catch and bycatch.

Cutting Silk highlights feminine identities that, amidst the ongoing patriarchal need to conquer and control, remain eternally fluid and elusive - ephemeral and challenging to possess - as their forms lack clear beginnings and endings, borders and boundaries. It illuminates the resilience of those who are vulnerable, emphasising how beauty and strength can emerge from brokenness and the continuous process of becoming.

Cutting Silk extends to both gallery locations: Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327 and Bos en Lommerweg 88 and runs until September 1st 2024. For more information or inquiries contact info@nomansart.com

Mia Chaplin (b. 1990, SA) is a painter and sculptor who lives and works in Cape Town. Working in oil on canvas and paper as well as in bronze and plaster sculpture, her highly expressive works are characterised by their rich impasto surfaces and visible brushwork. Her loose, style of painting is intuitive, heightening the emotion of her pieces. Chaplin’s works are her impressions of the female experience in relation to sexuality, sensuality, intimacy and violence.

Since completing her BFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Art in Cape Town in 2011, Chaplin has presented various solo exhibitions including Twister (2021) and Underbelly (2019), with No Man’s Art Gallery in Amsterdam as well as Swamp (2022), Mouth (2018), Under a Boiling River (2017), and Binding Forms (2016), with WHATIFTHEWORLD Gallery in Cape Town. She has exhibited her work with NMAG on various pop-up locations such as Iran (2016) and Mexico (2022). She has also extended her painting practice into printmaking, hosting a mini-exhibition of monotypes from the series, The Making of a Sharp Blade (2017), in collaboration with Warren Editions, Cape Town.

Chaplin has completed artist residency programmes at PM/AM Artist residency, London (2023), Cité Internationale Des Artes in the Marais district, Paris (2018), Nirox Arts Foundation in Johannesburg, South Africa (2016) and at OBRAS Foundation in Alentejo, Portugal (2015). Her work has been placed in numerous international private and public collections such as Spiers Arts Trust (SA), Akzo Nobel Art Foundation (NL) and LAM Museum, (NL).

ONLINE CATALOGUE

Press:

In de open ateliers van de Rijksakademie voel je de turbulentie van de wereld, in NRC, May 2024 

Paardenbloemen, in De Groene Amsterdammer, June 2024

 Beeldrijm, in Het Parool, July 2024

30.05.2024 - 21.07.2024

Opening Thursday May 30th from 5 - 8 pm
(afterparty at Bos en Lommerweg 88 until late)

Chances are it’s morning, looking out to smell that yellow sun; bright before, orange after. This ear, this early — that ant crawling on your shoulder. Their arms warm to hold me, perhaps there is a life here. “Oh dandelions milk, will you carry my thoughts and dreams?” Wide awake, she told me: “all ear all ear had you heard me that first time.” Do not be afraid of your own heart jumping. The tendrils crawled back to the house, so you forgot to mention what she told you. I whispered back: “i-loooove-you too”. 

No Man's Art Gallery is honoured to present dandelions milk, the debut solo exhibition by Afra Eisma with the gallery. In the echoing worlds of two gallery spaces, where lips speak, drips fall, and ants scurry alongside otherworldly beings, Afra Eisma brings magical worlds to life, where emotion serves as a source of strength and trauma acts as a catalyst for self empowerment and change. The vibrant and colourful nature of Eisma's installations is a strategy to address sensitive issues and illuminate the darker sides of personal experiences. 

dandelions milk is part of Amsterdam Art Week and extends to both gallery locations: Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327 and Bos en Lommerweg 88 and runs until July 21st 2024. For more information or inquiries contact info@nomansart.com

Photography by Neeltje de Vries and Gert Jan Van Rooij

Afra Eisma (b. 1993, NL) lives and works in Den Haag, the Netherlands. She studied Fine Arts at the Royal Academy of Arts, the Hague, and Central Saint Martins, London. Using craft techniques in novel ways, the artist explores and manifests personal stories through immersive and intimate installations of textiles, sculptures, and ceramics. Recently, Afra Eisma has been dedicated to creating immersive installations that actively involve the viewer, turning the sanctuary into an extension of the body. Generosity becomes a form of resistance. 

Recent and upcoming solo exhibitions include: Hop to Hope, Wälnö Aaltosen Museo, Turku, FN (2023); Splashdown Tetley, The Tetley, Leeds, UK (2023); Your silence will not protect you, Fries Museum, Leeuwarden, NL (2021); Feline Whispers, 1646, Den Haag, NL (2020); Rooms of now #3, Vleeshal, Middelburg, NL (2019). Recent group exhibitions include: Outside the soup, W139, Amsterdam, (2024); Very small feelings, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, IN (2023); Multiplied Voices, CIAJG, Guimaraes, Portugal (2022), De Scheffer Prijs, Dordrechts Museum, Dordrecht, Netherlands (2022); 84 steps, Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam, Netherlands (2021); Utsuro Bune, garden lab, Kyoto, Japan (2020); The sticky beaver show, Parallel Vienna, Vienna, Austria (2019); Royal Award for Modern Painting exhibition at the Royal Palace, Amsterdam, NL (2018). Eisma’s work is included in private and public collections, which include: Kiran Nadar Museum, New Dehli, IN; Textielmuseum, Tilburg, NL, De Vleeshal, Middelburg, NL; AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam, NL; Fries Museum, Friesland, NL.

online catalogue

NMAG looks forward to participate in the 6th edition of the Ballroom Project during Antwerp Art Weekend. The gallery will be showing works by Tobias Thaens and Benjamin Francis.

Ballroom Project
16.05 - 19.05.2024

Tobias Thaens
Benjamin Francis

On the ground floor Pieter Vermeulen will curate the group exhibition Les Fleurs du mal, including works by Sam Samiee.