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Highlight Gallery

June 15 - August 4, 2012

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17 Kearny Street San Francisco, CA 94104
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GNI-RI JUN2012 GNI_D_GH_451_OKT2009 (2009)
HIGHLIGHT is pleased to present GNI-RI JUN2012, the first US gallery solo exhibition by Belgian artist Nick Ervinck. The show consists of a series of Lambda prints, polyester sculptures, 3D prints and a digital animation of 3D forms. At the basis of the creation of Nick Ervinck’s body of work is his use of an archive of digital forms and sketches. Excerpts from this unlimited digital sketchbook lead to the creation of monumental forms, made of painted polyester, plaster and wood. Ervinck’s abstract sculptures puzzle the mind upon closer inspection. Similar to a Rorschach test, the meaning one gives to the work will depend on one’s own imagination. It can not be reduced to existing forms. Within the exhibit are shapes of chinese rock formations, baroque and rococo motifs, manga imagery and details of medical manuals. All digitally reproduced, mirrored, distorted and rebuilt again by Ervinck. This organic imagery is reminiscent of the endoskeleton of a new life born through digital technology. Like a cyborg, his oeuvre is a sensational whole, whose various components are interrelated: fragments of animals, corals, bodies, machines, etc. Ervinck’s fascination with artificial, biological and robotic elements generates unearthly objects of fascination for us. The cross-fertilization between the real and the virtual allows endless explorations and possibilities. New technologies open artistic paths which were previously in the realm of the impossible. To quote Hans Theys:  “Henry Moore would never have been able to make it because the form is much too complicated. Ervinck can make this form because he can design it in 3D programs. Here we see a fine example of how the simultaneous progress he makes with 3D drawings and traditional sculpting leads to new forms ”. Mirroring this augmented artistic reality, the forms shown in the exhibit create a dialogue within the existing space and always ask for a new perspective. Even the titles of the artworks are distorted and reversed so that the original words can hardly be traced. Reference points become obsolete, as a new frontier is being created. Nick Ervinck was born in 1981 in Belgium. He has had numerous solo exhibitions at Koraalberg (Antwerp), S.M.A.K. (Ghent), Telic (Berlin), Gallery Ron Mandos (Amsterdam) and VOLTA (New York). He recently participated in the Beaufort 04 Triennial (Belgium) with artists such as Erwin Wurm, Bernar Venet, Folkert de Jong, Claire Fontaine and Hans op de Beeck. Other select group exhibitions he has participated in are: Young Flemish Masters at the Hermitage Museum (Amsterdam), Creativity World Biennale (Oklohama, USA), The Musei Civici de San Gimignano (Italy), MOCA (Shanghai), Telic (Los Angeles) and Ervinck has also been presented at Art Brussels, Art Amsterdam, Art Dubai and VOLTA Basel. In 2005, Ervinck received the Godecharle prize for Sculpture, the Mais prize of the City Brussels and the Prize for Visual Art of West-Flanders in 2006, as well as the Rodenbach Fonds Award in 2008. His work is in the Vanhaerents Art Collection, Broel Museum, Provincie West-Vlaanderen, De Kunstcollectie Hogeschool amongst many more private and public collections in Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany.