V1 GALLERY PROUDLY PRESENTS
Flat Lands
An exhibition by Atelier Pica Pica
Atelier Pica Pica is a multidisciplinary collective that works with painting, sculpture, photography and site specific installations. The collective consist of Boris Magotteaux (1978), Manuel Falcata (1979) and Jerome Degive (1980), all born and raised in Liege, Belgium.
Atelier Pica Pica’s practice is derived from a curious investigation of our urban, rural and cultural surroundings and how they impact and interact. They also have an idiosyncratic interest in the duality of the periphery. Their first solo exhibition in Denmark Flat Lands is the result of extensive field research and is presented as such; installed in a kind of reduced art laboratory setting. Shapes, structures, surfaces, patterns, both constructed and random, colors and textures are tested, juxtaposed, related and deconstructed in paintings and sculptures.
Highlighting the mundane, extracting and magnifying the overlooked, distilling the detail, Atelier Pica Pica engage in their process as visual scientists – artists. The result of the process is a distinctive, authentic, intuitive and strangely sincere visual vocabulary. This vocabulary forms the basics for all the works in Flat Lands, but while the sculptures are influenced by the paintings and vice-versa, the photographs act as both source material and key to a social context of the collective’s work.
Atelier Pica Pica employs a variety of materials in their production, many of them reclaimed, different types of wood, metals, cardboard, glass, fabric, bicycle tires and various types of paint; enamel, oil, acrylic, household, and spray paint, each contribute a specific accent for their language.
The collective practice of Atelier Pica Pica, which transcends the traditional ego driven artistic process, is akin to a community without any other hierarchy than that of their core artistic values; collaboration, serendipity and authenticity. In combination with their investigative outset and their distinct visual language, Atelier Pica Pica has created a modus operandi, where artistic practice, life and intent merge. A rare artistic platform.
Atelier Pica Pica has recently exhibited at Le Botanique (2013), The French Cultural Center, Bruxelles, Alice (2013), Bruxelles, Museé d’Ansembourg (2012), Liège – where they were awarded first prize at the Prix De La Création 2012. Flat Lands is the collective’s first solo exhibition with V1 Gallery.
