I am glad to announce i will be presenting my work at the new ARTGANG Gallery in Montreal, together with my artist friend Nuria Mora.
We will both be part of an exhibition curated by Pablo Aravena, showing selected works on paper from next June 5th. 
MISS VAN & NURIA MORA – works on paper
Exhibition curated by M. Pablo Aravena
Showing from June 5th 2015 to July 5th 2015*
*Show has been extended til July 26th
Artgang Art Contemporain – 6524 St-Hubert (Montréal)
* Special opening on June 5th, starting at 5pm *
Music by Scott C. Afterparty on location, hosted by M. DL Jones & the Knife And Fork Crew
Please contact the gallery for any inquiry: info@artgangmontreal.com
MISS VAN & NURIA MORA — OEUVRES SUR PAPIER/WORKS ON PAPER – ARTGANG PRESENTS — teaser from Pablo Aravena on Vimeo.
CURATORIAL STATEMENT by Pablo Aravena
As the inaugural exhibition for ARTGANG gallery, we present to you an exhibit featuring paper works from two important artists who have made their name in the streets of Europe and the world, who also have a strong studio practice.
Miss Van is a name that is known throughout the street art world as one of the pioneering female figures in this scene. Originally from Toulouse now residing in Barcelona, Miss Van’s work is iconic. She has exhibited extensively for decades in Europe, USA and Asia. Her work is renowned for its figurative representations of women known as the poupées (dolls). These female figures are strong, sexy but can also be melancholy, sad and determined. They have their own personalities and emotional complexity. Miss Van has chosen to rebel against male supremacy by exhibiting her femininity in a raw and unabridged manner. She paints to represent herself rather than all women. Her strong lines render fine subtleties and sensuality in her work. Miss Van has evolved with her work becoming more complex as the years pass. She has created a body of work that is recognized worldwide and represents a strong feminine point of view, which continues to create a conversation and break barriers.
Nuria Mora is based in Madrid and is known for her work with geometric patterns, abstraction and color. She originally comes from a fine arts background but started working on the street because of its direct communication to the public and the experimentation it allowed her to do with her visual language. Nuria’s motif – the key (La Llave) is the starting point of her abstractions. Her motivation is to invite reflection and calm and also to give value to the surface or environment she is working in. Her street practice informs her studio practice and vice versa. Constantly experimenting and pushing barriers with her work, Nuria proposes a unique artistic vision that has led her to work on 2D and 3D formats as well as working with textiles and fashion. She is one of Spain’s leading contemporary artists.
In this opening show we have a contrast of styles from the figurative in Miss Van’s work to the geometric color and form abstractions of Nuria’s work. This exhibition brings the work of Nuria Mora to Montreal for the very first time. Miss Van has shown in the city before but this is the first exhibit that goes deeper into her oeuvre. We hope to introduce a Montreal audience to these two powerhouse artists who when grouped together create a strong duet of work highlighting two currents of work by contemporary female artists whose work originates on the street.
MISS VAN
Miss Van started wall-painting at the age of 20, in 1993, initiating the feminine movement in Street Art. Originating from Toulouse, France and having spent most of her artistic life in Barcelona, Miss Van has travelled the world painting her instantly recognizable women on the streets, as well as on canvas. She has exhibited extensively for decades worldwide in Europe, USA and Asia. Miss Van’s recent artistic pursuits have taken her to Los Angeles, Miami, Spain and Brazil, which hallmarks a recent return to street art, after several years spent solely painting in the studio, charging her new works with increased depth, emotion and an elevated romantic darkness and delicacy. Her iconic sultry female characters reappear in sensual yet dark animal masks and evolving environments.In a gauzy romantic compositions, they carry a surreal quality of burlesque, resonating with a beautiful synergy of rawness, softness and emotion. Miss Van adds, “I’m evolving and growing up with my paintings. It’s the only way, when you paint with emotions and feelings. I’m trying to be true with myself.”
NURIA MORA
‘There is something intrinsically subtle about Nuria’s work, something which, even when confronting you in an unexpected, unforeseen manner, always does so in a delicate, calming way. Is this the femininity she talks about in her work? Not femininity in terms of painting specifically female themes however, but in her way of working with the structure around her, not against it. Not trying to dominate the surrounding environment, not wanting to simply attach her meaning on to it, but opening us up to a new appreciation of the space around us, a new way of seeing our urban milieu.
Nuria’s work creates an explicit, dialogical interaction with the surface, an interchange between herself and the very medium of the city, but must also be understood through its attempt to create a dialogue with the public itself, with her audience, the diverse community of the city. Her work is thus what she would call an ‘open language’, a silent, sensitive poetry, working against the saturation, the overburdening of signals that we are subject to within everyday city life. Through a spontaneous, respectful practice, considering the space, place and the neighbourhood itself, Nuria thus attempts to make ‘a place for free thinking’, a ‘space of dead time’, using a language which is ‘infinite, abstract’, and thus ‘universal’.
There is more to Nuria’s aesthetic than her street productions alone however, and her inside work, her endeavours taking place within gallery or institutional settings, would thus never seek to simply replicate her outside projects within this new context; to produce on a canvas what would otherwise need the medium of the street, the spontaneity of the city to function effectively, would simply be an anathema to Nuria, it would just not make sense. Using installations, videos, murals, watercolours, whichever tool she can reach out and use, Nuria thus re-creates her world within this new context, vitally however, always somehow connecting it with the space of the city, with the real world outside of this ‘place’.
-Rafael Schacter, Mas alla de la curva del camino
Artgang Montréal is a new hub in the world of visual arts: contemporary art gallery, arts café, gift shop. The building also hosts an art school, artist studios, offices and other workspaces.
The main entrance is located at 6524 rue Saint-Hubert, just a short walk from métro Beaubien. Other locations already exist (more studios and another boutique) and allow the marketing of a total of 20,000 square ft. dedicated to the creative world.
Artgang Art Contemporain promotes and offers to collectors the best of cutting edge contemporary art, pop art, graffiti art, and other post-war and contemporary art movements.
