{art} Annabelle Jasmin Verhoye

2006-11-30 until 2006-12-15
Opera Gallery
New York, NY, USA United States of America


The Opera Gallery in New York City is proud to present the first solo show in New York of paintings by Annabelle Jasmin Verhoye beginning Thursday, November 30th, 2006. Annabelle Jasmin Verhoye's work seeks to create imagery on multiple dimensions that is at once true to her subject's form, yet with an additional layer of interpretation. The resulting effect is one of elucidating both the scene‚s objective nature as well as its inner essence and the mood it organically creates.

Many of her new pieces are pure landscapes, but some also involve human subjects seamlessly integrated within natural settings with an intent and purpose that is emotive and powerful. She plays with both monochromic backdrops as well as vistas that pull the viewer into the piece with gradients of light and depth. It is in part in the detail of her work that the artist‚s style is first revealed: painted on the backside of glass, the colors of the images are applied in various coats, inspired in part by Europe‚s stained glass windows.

Annabelle's artistic process cannot be completely predetermined. Her technique and conceptual framework is in many ways the polar opposite of many past and current approaches in two important ways. For example, she gives her paint in part free rein, as she works in a reverse layering process sometimes obfuscating form with each application. The result is her first layer of paint is often the first image the viewer sees, as opposed to the last brush stroke of an oil painting being the most forward facing. The unveiled result is stunning; just as a forest itself does not evolve as a predetermined collection of trees, Annabelle‚s work begins and ends in a similarly natural way–uncalculated yet true to the spirit of her subject's sublime nature.
Additionally, she has extended her traditional palette of glass and acrylic paint to raise the significance of the naming of her work, in a sense attempting to synergistically bring visual art and prose together. The intent is to not limit the viewer's experience, but to in fact enhance it, adding another dimension to the piece yet within a framework that is provocative; in a sense a movement away from the relativism embraced by some contemporary artists.

Born in Germany and raised in France, she ultimately moved to Manhattan where she received her MFA degree from the School of Visual Arts. Her work has won numerous awards and has been exhibited at Opera Gallery (New York), BMW (New York), R2 Gallery, Thomas Werner Gallery (New York), The Society of Illustrators, The Tribeca Arts Club, School of Visual Arts (Korea), Catherine Malandrino ( New York) and La Samaritaine (Paris), in addition to other venues.

mondo