Florian & Michael Quistrebert - Voyagers Go Overlight

The Voyagers Go Overlight exhibition is the first solo show of Florian and Michael Quistrebert in Poland. This year, the brothers have been nominated for the prestigious Marcel Duchamp award. The exhibition will present the artists' latest project and works prepared specifically for the exhibition at Leto Gallery.

The illuminating surface of Florians’ and Michaels’ Quistrebert work becomes an area of struggle between matter and an ephemeral game of reflections. The brothers create images with rich, fleshy texture full of pleats and beads coated with shiny, metallic paints. This is the next step of their artistic exploration, which, up until now, had been marked by geometric abstractions, symmetry and intersecting layers of color. Struggles with symmetry are also present in the works shown in the Voyagers Go Overlight exhibition. In their works, the artists trace symmetry and harmony, and it's denial in the relationship between texture of the surface and luminous blocks. Light is what allows our eyes to "touch" the matter, emerge shapes from shadows, provide them with mass and volume, and to bring out the nature of the material. The glossy surface reveals depressions and bulges of images. But besides blocks of reflected light, the works themselves constitute an independent source of light. On some of them, among the layers of matter, shine small LED reflectors, causing confusion and diversity in the natural action of light on the surface of the work, which is already rich in reflections. Sometimes the LEDs placed in the surface area, with their action "charge" the whole picture, focusing their lightness, which is of contrast to the thick layers of matter. In other cases, the game between the ambient light and the one contained in the images themselves is inseparable, and the boundaries of their actions become "overexposed", impossible to differentiate. Matter and nothingness, light and shadow - cease to be in force oppositions and a new structure of opposites is created in their place - matter and light. Both are inseparable, interdependant and at the same time they contradict one another. Light does not have a tangible, material dimension. The matter itself cannot reveal its properties without a touch of light. Thus, any attempts to define the geometry and symmetry in the work of Quistreberts disappear from the surface of the paintings, to be revealed a little deeper, through mutual emergence and formation of dense matter and soft light. Images of the brothers lighten up with infinite possibilities that can shape the categories in its dialectical and constant abrasion.

FLORIAN & MICHAEL QUISTREBERT Born in France in 1982 and 1976 respectively. Graduated from Ecole des Beaux Artes in Nantes, FR. They work together since 2007. In 2014 nominated for the Marcel Duchamp award established by the Association pour la Diffusion Internationale de l'Art Français in cooperation with Centre Pompidou and FIAC. Their work has been featured in many art institutions in the world, including: Perrotin Gallery, Paris (2014), Galleria Massimodeluca, Mestre (2013), Zoo Galerie, Nantes (2013), Kunstraum, London (2013), South London Gallery, London (2013), Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2013), Galeries Nationales du Grand-Palais, Paris (2013), Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (2013), Centre national des arts plastiques, Brussles (2013), Cosar HMT, Düsseldorf (2013), 4th Arts in Marrakech Biennale, Maorocco (2012), Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2012), Harris Lieberman Gallery, New York (2012), Centre Pompidou, Paris (2012), PSM Gallery, Berlin (2012), CARprojects, Bolonia (2011), Galerie Stadtpark, Krems (2011), IG Bildende Kunst, Vienna (2011), Silverman Gallery, San Francisco (2011), Domaine Départemental de Chamerande (2010), Carol Jazzar Gallery, Envoy Enterprises, New York (2009, 2010), Miami (2009), Printemps de Septembre, Toulouse (2009). The brothers were involved in artistic residencies in: Triangle Studio, New York (2009), Domaine Départemental de Chamerande (2010), Rijksakademie, Amsterdam (2012). The artists are represented by the Crevecoeur Gallery in Paris and Juliette Jongma Gallery in Amsterdam.

www.quistrebert.com