2022. 7. 22 – 8. 13
Joseph Munyao Baraka, Pablo Benzo, Mona Broschár, Henrik Godsk, Marina Iglesias, Rhys Lee, Tania Marmolejo, Hilda Palafox, Foster Sakyiamah

Nine artists being introduced to the viewers in Korea for the first time gathered at The Breakfast Club. The exhibition invites viewers to their individuality and cultural backgrounds.

Joseph Munyao Baraka was born in Kenya, lives and works in Nairobi, Kenya. Baraka sees as much personality in animals, which feature heavily in his work, as in people. Although his art has progressed, most human subjects will be accompanied by an animal, expanding on the character of the person he has chosen to paint, such as a familiar or friend. Colour is a key part of Baraka’s practice. Although applied instinctively, there is a delicate balance in his vibrant pallet. His work is as surreal as it is figurative, presenting the physical aspects of his subjects alongside the imagined and perceived reality of their personalities.

Pablo Benzo was born in Santiago de Chile and has been based in Berlin since 2013. Loosely approaching perspective and dimension, Benzo is able to create the impossible arrangements of unreal plants, odd vases, and interior objects. Primarily focusing on composition and the ways to render their velvety surface, the Artist plays with gradients, often reaching for oversaturated hues of a specific color. Contrasted against dim and neutral backgrounds, these compositions gain prominence while creating an atmosphere of freedom or confusion. He recently had a solo exhibition at Dio Horia in Greece and chose Korea as his first show in Asia.

Mona Broschár was born in Germany, lives and works in Germany. Her work depicts the Artist’s own still lifes through its lovely colors, graphic shapes, and smooth balloon-like volume. In addition, she creates the unknown fantasy art world by vitalizing desserts, plants, ruffles, and ribbons. She has chosen Korea as her first show in Asia.

Henrik Godsk was born in Denmark, lives and works in Denmark. Godsk creates figurative works depicting structured interiors and androgynous characters, simplified by geometric forms. Influenced by Scandinavian simplicity and Danish design, Godsk’s paintings adhere to a self-imposed set of rules dictating the use of reduced forms, shapes, and colors. Working primarily in oil on canvas, Godsk images are reminiscent of Russian avant-garde paintings and evoke the radiance and sensuality of Paul Klee’s color schemes. In addition, Godsk’s work is informed by formalism, art history, and folkloric art and culture. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin, Munich, Barcelona, Stockholm & Copenhagen, and has been acquired by prominent public and private collections. He chose Korea as his first show in Asia.

Marina Iglesias was born in Spain, lives and works in Spain. Iglesias’s interest around painting and sculpture consists in plastic experimentation itself, as well as in asking herself questions to transmit them to the viewers. In this sense, her work is nourished by the non-linear art history that Aby Warburg suggested, a history that relates images regardless of when they were made to bringing them to the present. Questions such as who and how history is written and what collective and the personal legacy it leaves us are essential in her work. Her pieces acclaim fantasy and also reality, inviting us to question ourselves about how we perceive them. She has chosen Korea as her first show in Asia.

Rhys Lee was born in Australia, lives and works in Australia. Painting has always been an intuitive process for Lee through a vibrant palette, his playful mark-making draws from personal memories in a moment of cathartic release. His fractured portraits and still life compositions often rely on a Cubist or Impressionist aesthetic. By fusing these traditional art tendencies with the graffiti influences from his youth, Lee powerfully develops a unique, experimental, raw practice. The Artist blurs the boundaries between representation and abstraction, shifting his focus to color and form. Lee has been exhibited widely both nationally and internationally, with solo exhibitions in Australia, Germany, Paris, and New Zealand. He was a finalist in the 2012 Archibald Prize. His works have found their home in many public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Australia, Artbank, the National Library of France & MIMA Museum Brussels. Lee’s participation in The Breakfast Club is his first exhibition in Korea.

Tania Marmolejo was born in the Dominican Republic, lives and works in New York, US. Marmolejo has been exploring large-scale paintings of ambiguous female expressions by juxtaposing the intimate and personal with the monumental. The Artist uses portraits and physical expression as a communication system to transfer emotions into the viewers creating affective and emotional empathy. She had received great attention and love since her debut exhibition in Asia at ELIGERE last year.

Hilda Palafox was born in Mexico, lives, and works in Mexico. Palafox’s work includes painting, drawing, ceramics, and textiles. Hidden in her strokes, the mystery of the feminine is balanced with the symbolism of the physical, emotional, and spiritual state; she explores the body as matter with the ability to mold itself. Her use of the figurative focuses on the female figure as a tool of expression. The line, as a continuous succession of points, becomes important in Palafox’s work, in which it is possible to observe the intersection of disciplines. The movement of the brush in both curved and straight lines traces the body mass of her characters that cover large parts of the canvas, made up of colorful and textured planes due to the materiality of the oil. Her training in graphic design has led her to focus her interest on the color and syntax of the image, as well as on the connection with the viewer through images that show daily activities turned into subtle analogies about emotions and the closest experiences of the human psyche. She has participated in exhibitions in cities such as Oaxaca, Querétaro, Mexico City, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Onomichi. In addition, she has made murals in Mexico, the United States, Canada, Japan, and Brazil. Palafox’s participation in The Breakfast Club is her first exhibition in Korea.

Foster Sakyiamah was born in Ghana, lives and works in Accra, Ghana. Instantly recognizable for the vibrant color palettes and preponderance of curved linear patterns, his paintings are celebrated as exuberant portrayals of the people and culture of Ghana. His affinity for patterns comes from his interest in the work of Malian photographer Malick Sidibé and Ghanaian-British Photographer James Barnor, who often dressed his subjects in patterned clothes and posed them amid wildly patterned floors and backdrops. Such a diversity of patterns and forms creates a dynamism in his paintings that thrills the eye and brings his figures to life. The content in his paintings concerns his inner feelings and attitudes toward his community, his culture, and the everyday domestic aspects of his life in Ghana. His portraits convey a psychological attitude or state of mind through the figures’ facial expressions, fashion styles, and body language. The intense graphic quality of his compositions is an expression of his appreciation for popular culture and a reflection of his interests in the history and principles of design. His deft juxtaposition of complementary forces heightens the energy and dynamism that defines Sakyiamah’s canvases. His precise and hard-edged portrayal of human figures contrasts his elegant and lyrical use of gestural lines. His rich and luxurious palette of black and brown flesh tones mingles with a luminous and bright rainbow of background hues. The objective sense of reality conveyed by the perfectly rendered human figures is juxtaposed against the symbolic and purely abstract patterns, lines, and forms enveloping their world. Most captivating of all, perhaps, is the exactitude of Sakyiamah’s craft. The graphic flatness that defines his pictures from afar is juxtaposed sublimely with the lush and painterly impasto texture of his painted surfaces when viewed up close. Sakyiamah’s participation in The Breakfast Club is his first exhibition in Korea.

The Breakfast Club will present 29 new works of nine artists.

ELIGERE
55, Apgujeong-ro 79-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Korea
+82 2 518 4287

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