Lawrence Carroll — That Was Comes — Karsten Greve Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 9 → October 28, 2017

The Galerie Karsten Greve announces That What Comes, an exhibition devoted to the art of Lawrence Carroll, represented by the gallery since 1999. His intimate, melancholic art turns the humblest of materials into powerful metaphors for the fragility and urge to resist inherent in human nature. Two European museums are hosting exhibitions of his art in 2017, the Museo Vincenzo Vela in Lugano, Switzerland, and the Kunstmuseum Kloster in Magdeburg, Germany, the latter opening in November.

Lawrence Carroll’s work shares affinities with that of Giorgio Morandi in the constant quest for the poetic potential of the most everyday objects in their structure and physical presence in space and the importance of the subtle play of daylight. Carroll’s creations will engage the Italian master’s works in dialogue through the exhibition Giorgio Morandi, opening in parallel on the courtyard side of the gallery. The twin exhibitions usher visitors into a meditative realm where the mind can settle in peace and breathe to the measured rhythm of slowly silting time.

Lawrence Carroll’s oeuvre makes use of humble materials, forgotten fragments, even dust. His paintings, which often morph into objects, bear witness to a time that makes its mark on the canvas, itself constantly reinvented as each brush stroke erases the one before. For Carroll, creativity lies in a lengthy process of concentration and contemplation. The urge to tame the work and trust it to reveal itself creates a deeply intimate bond between it and the artist. Painting and life are inextricably bound, their connection reaching beyond autobiography to make the work itself an image of existence.

Lawrence Carroll’s paintings discreetly await their audience in a silence all their own. The silence is never mute: beneath the seeming unruffled calm of the surface seethes vast energy.