Mina + Bruce – Solo Pour Deux
24th of February – 21st of April 2018 art is just a four letter word gallery
Beginning of the year 2018 Art Is Just A Four Letter Word Gallery presents the duo show Solo Pour Deux of the German-French artist team Mina and Bruce. After a long and intensive collaboration within their studio in Berlin, they are going to show a series of artworks, which they now produced independently from each other – at new places, with new influences and inspirations. Mina and Bruce are worldwide known for their unique, colorful and humorous Graffiti, which most of the time relate to current, cultural topics with a wink. Precise lines and efficient simplicity mark their pieces. Their work on canvases build up on these reduced design vocabulary, yet assimilate their own aesthetic. The artworks are characterized by mixture of figurative and abstract elements.
Bruce gives a clear reference to his graffiti within his works and uses spray cans as working material partially. In front of monochrome and flat color fields, spreading in unregularly sizes over the canvas, consistently appear every day objects, which exhibit such a static layout of the lines and bold choice of color, that they seem totally out of place. They are pictured over dimensioned and show just a few trials to create an impression of depths. Black, thick brushstrokes under the objects suggest shadows and because of that they can anchor within these abstract spatial structures. That is how a narrative is able to get created and it seems as the viewer gets an insight into the artist’s period of life.
Mina creates abstract and subtle compositions on canvas, whereby she generates depth by pictorial complexity. That means the complexity of used forms, whose overlap gets arranged and simultaneously deconstructed. Moreover Mina works with color and technical contrasts and in that way stages harmony, but also controversial tensions within her compositions. Nana, an unique female figure, marks a recurring visitor within Mina’s artworks. With her feminine and voluminous curves, she refers to the famous sculptures of French artist Niki de Saint-Phalle. In French the complex word „NanaDzstands for a modern, self-confident and sometimes shady woman. Saint-Phalle used this term for her positive figures already in the early 60’s, to declare her solidarity with the feminist’s movement. Also Mina’s female characters are worthy of calling them DzNanasdz. Mostly portrayed in an active and dancing movement, they show off their typically female attributes as breasts, butts, long hair and eyelashes in a provocative way. Within an art world still dominated by men, even more within the graffiti scene, the DzNana’sdzcan be seen as a clear and pioneering statement of the artist. Solo pour deux presents a synthesis of actual and independent studio works of Mina and Bruce.
In presence of the artists the exhibition kicks off with an opening on the 24th of February 2018, at 7pm at Markt 6, 59494 Soest, Germany.
Copyright by Mina & Bruce and art is just a four letter word UG&Co.KG