Hector Pascal marks the debut solo exhibition of Amat Gueye. The artist creates eclectic paintings using ordinary cartridge ink and synthetic resin. Within these artworks, Gueye explores interior spaces and architectural floorplans. Oscillating between graphic and loose brushwork, the paintings appear strangely blurry and distorted. The layered application of smudged and fuzzy patches of signaletic colours contrasts the sharp outlines of foreign objects scattered in between, resulting in an illusion of uncanny depth that alludes to the ambiguous realms of the unconscious. Navigating through these fictitious spaces, the artworks act as inklings on a quest for an elusive presence that lingers in the background, tantalisingly close yet persistently slippery and beyond reach.
Gueye's artistic practice intertwines figurative and abstract elements, constructing a body of work that resonates with themes of dissonance, abundance, and uncertainty. His paintings mirror a world inundated with a ceaseless torrent of digital imagery, where boundaries between the real and the virtual blur into obscurity resulting in a landscape that is both vast and fleeting. Drawing inspiration from the constant shifting of cities riddled with building sites, the works appear both present and absent, seemingly caught in between their construction or destruction.
Embedded within Gueye's work lies a sense of reminiscence and escapism. Memories of a childhood spent in the 1990s imbue the layers behind the shiny surface with references to the virtual realms of video games and the pulsating rhythms of techno music. The graphic gestures and vibrant colours, while placed with deliberation on the glossy paper, playfully allude to the mindless doodling of students at school. This fusion of influences culminates in a kaleidoscopic mélange of unseen amalgams and abstracted objects.
Gueye's compositions, characterised by their slippery, translucent quality, serve as vehicles for exploring the liminal spaces between abstraction and representation. Rooted in the tradition of abstract painting, his works navigate the turbulent space of a destabilized yet jubilant present, offering glimpses into realms where uncertainty converges with joy, and where the boundaries of a painting beyond its surface are continually redefined.
Amat Gueye (b. 1995) lives and works in Brussels (BE). In 2021 he received an MFA in Visual Art at the Ecole nationale supérieure des arts visuels de La Cambre (BE).
