Halcyon Gallery’s New Exhibition Showcases Beauty “In Plain Sight”
- Sanjeeva Suresh
- Apr 27
- 3 min read
Featuring floral works by David Hockney and Bob Dylan, the “In Plain Sight” exhibition aims to shine a spotlight on beauty “in the everyday”.
Halcyon Gallery's recent exhibition "In Plain Sight" features the works of six notable artists, including David Hockney, Bob Dylan, Ernesto Cánovas, and Dominic Harris. The exhibition prominently features flowers, with each artist showcasing their unique stylistic and technical interpretations within the central floral theme — ranging from David Hockney’s vibrant tulips rendered on an iPad to Bob Dylan’s dynamic depiction of sunflowers in watercolour, and Dominic Harris’s digital representations of blooming flowers. MEGAMIND provides a succinct summary of what art aficionados might anticipate from this exhibition.
“In Plain Sight” encourages viewers to pause and appreciate beauty “in the everyday,” as the exhibition honors art's capacity to reveal the allure in what some may overlook. David Hockney stated, “Pictures influence pictures, but they also enable us to perceive things we might not otherwise notice.”
The exhibition also sees the debut of Pedro Paricio’s series — entitled “9 Portraits” — for the first time outside his native Canary Islands. Painted in 2023, Paricio was inspired by the great portraits of art history, appropriating motifs, gestures, and expressions, and incorporating them into his unique, contemporary visual language.
Paricio converts emotional moments, shown in portraits by artists such as Pablo Picasso, Mary Cassatt, and Artemisia Gentileschi, into vibrant designs. By eliminating the faces from the images that have influenced him, he "erases their individuality, transforming the 17th-century portrait into a depiction of universal humanity." The collection, characterized by the artist as “paintings with a pop look, but a classic spirit,” was initially shown at the Mapfre Foundation in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 2023.
The exhibition will showcase Paul Cummins MBE’s “Florian” sculpture which consists of elaborate handmade porcelain white roses that are woven into an intricate circle, reinforcing the traditional symbol of purity. Cummins — who is renowned for his unique approach to the representation of flowers both in the medium of painting and sculpture — aims to invert the concept of a rose window by highlighting the complex interplay of shadows by evoking the light patterns created by stained glass rose windows in gothic churches.
Guests of the exhibition will also be the first to see Cummins’s floral paintings in mixed media on paper. Conceived from the artist’s studies of his homegrown flowers, he photographs them at every stage of their development. These paintings capture the sublime effect of bloom; their petals dispersing to reveal their full effervescent splendour.
“NeoBloom” is a never-before-seen piece by leading digital artist Dominic Harris. The artwork highlights constantly blooming flowers, mesmerising in their perpetuity and reflects the exhibition’s central narrative of “In Plain Sight”; the beauty of the everyday. This new artwork hangs alongside an immersive space that features an interactive environment of digitally hand-painted butterflies, entitled “Spectrum” which are being exhibited for the first time.
Last but certainly not least, Ernesto Cánovas’ most ambitious paintings will also be on show. His latest series displays the manipulation of photographs and mediums to represent memories that imply an unfolding narrative. At first, the artworks appear dreamlike, with the hazy subject matter forming an abstract representation of found materials however, on closer inspection, the subject reveals itself. Beneath the layers of vinyl and acrylic that have been meticulously built up by hand are objects and figures that take centre stage.
In Plain Sight is available on view at Halcyon Gallery’s flagship at 148 New Bond Street until July 7 2024.
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