Hartley Gabriel

Gabriel Hartley (London, UK, 1981) lives and works in London. He holds a BA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art and Design, London, and a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Art from the Royal Academy Schools, London. His work has been internationally exhibited. Gabriel Hartley’s work combines optical effects and iconic markings on highly textured surfaces. His work summons early Modernism’s play with abstraction and perspective. With bold linear brush-strokes and organic, elemental shapes, his forms play with space and movement. The artists’ surface effects – generated through a mix of gloss and matte paint – convey both a flatness and a depth that produce a palpable sense of tension, and recall the paintings of School of Paris artist Jean Fautrier.
Hartley fuses seemingly opposing elements: the painterly and the photographic, flatness and depth, and two and three dimensions. He simultaneously constructs and excavates – building subjects and unraveling them – to create figures at once formative and timeworn.

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