In Plain Sight is a new exhibition at Halcyon Gallery featuring artwork by major contemporary artists, including David Hockney and Bob Dylan. It explores how artists respond to the everyday, transforming the mundane into the miraculous.
The show is now on view at Halcyon Gallery’s flagship at 148 New Bond Street until 7 July. It examines one of art’s most powerful functions, directing its audience to everyday beauty. It features work from British artists David Hockney, Paul Cummins, and Dominic Harris, all depicting flowers, from Hockney’s vivid tulips created on an iPad to Harris’s never-before-seen piece entitled NeoBloom.
Exhibiting these artists in a shared space allows the viewer to see their artwork in dialogue, competing with one another and highlighting each artist’s distinct vision of flowers. Leading digital artist Dominic Harris uses technology to construct personal interpretations of natural phenomena. His reverence for nature and fascination with code offers a surreal and whimsical take on reality.
“Neo-Bloomed” delves into the enduring beauty and symbolic depth of flowers, capturing their peak moments of bloom without the eventual decline into decay.” Harris says, “These flowers are not static; they are designed to interact with the viewer, triggering a ‘big bloom’- a moment of dramatic transformation before regrowing, symbolising rebirth and eternal renewal.” This new artwork hangs alongside an immersive space entitled Spectrum, which features an interactive environment of digitally hand-painted butterflies.
Paul Cummins MBE, Halcyon Gallery artist who created the renowned installation of ceramic Poppies at the Tower of London (2014), showcases his bold representation of flowers using vibrant glazes combined with the raw presence of steel and wire. On display is his sculpture Florian, which consists of elaborate handmade porcelain white roses, woven into an intricate circle, reinforcing the traditional symbol of purity.
Cummins’s floral paintings in mixed media on paper, conceived from the artists’ studies of his homegrown flowers, are also exhibited for the first time. Having photographed the flowers at every stage of development, these paintings capture the sublime effect of bloom’ their petals dispersing to reveal their full splendour.
Contemporary Spanish artist Pedro Paricio takes a significant source of his inspiration for his piece Tulips from Hockney, whom the artwork hangs alongside, stating, “Since Monet, no one other than Hockney has managed to encapsulate the force of nature through colour, and the way it dances in the air, ever-changing”.
Figure studies are also represented in In Plain Sight, with Paricio’s series, entitled 9 Portraits, focusing on the central role that women have played in the arts, both as subjects on canvas and as artists themselves. Inspired by the great portraits of art history, appropriating motifs, gestures and expressions, Paricio incorporates them into his unique contemporary visual language, removing the faces from the portraits that have inspired him so that they become a representation of universal humanity. This series, painted in 2023, is exhibited for the first time outside his native Canary Islands.
9 Portraits are immediately juxtaposed with Bob Dylan’s loose techniques and his capturing of his subject at the moment of seeing. The exhibition also features Dylan’s energetic portrayal of sunflowers in watercolour.
Ernesto Cánovas’ latest series of monumental paintings will also be exhibited. This work is his most ambitious to date, manipulating photographs and mediums to represent memories which imply an unfolding narrative. The artworks appear dreamlike, with the hazy subject matter an abstract representation of found materials. On closer inspection, the subject reveals itself beneath the layers of vinyl and acrylic that have been meticulously built up by hand; figures and objects soon take centre stage.
In Plain Sight is now on view at Halcyon Gallery’s flagship at 148 New Bond Street until 7th July
Established in 1983, Halcyon Gallery specialises in modern and contemporary art, spanning Impressionism to Pop Art. It operates three London galleries on New Bond Street and Harrods, Knightsbridge. The gallery showcases art from modern masters, critically acclaimed living artists, and promising new talent and is committed to developing the careers of a diverse range of artists with exceptional skills. Its work captures the imagination of collectors, international museums and institutions, and the general public. Halcyon Gallery employs a full-service creative team that offers expert professional support for artistic innovation.