New Work

TORCH gallery Amsterdam is pleased to announce it's fifth solo exhibition by Dutch photographer Popel Coumou. New Work will open on Saturday the 8th of April between 5-7pm. A new publication will be printed for the occasion and Popel will present a limited edition box set including a small work and all previous publications in the series. In her recent work she has made a suprising move in her artistic framework towards more instable forms and less defined vistas. It is a reorientation on the way photographs can suggest time, space and light and simultaneously a reinterpretation of the visual patterns that have occured throughout her work. Besides these photographs she will also present lightboxes and three dimensional collages.

A chronological survey of the photographic work of Popel Coumou offers a bird's eye view of an intriguing process of dissolving physical and mental borders. Although her work is often very contemplative in nature she is slowly guiding it towards a convincing monumentality. Her early works revolve around empty hotel rooms and dusty hallways as private spaces for reflection. Or they look for the acquiescence that can be found in a bouquet of flowers. Now, Popel uses a similar thoughtfulness to search for specific emotions in abstract volumes and graphic horizons. In her work she combines modernist utopianism with intimate sensations using a very personal blend of influences and aesthetics. A youthful escapism is translated to an open and mature perspective. The clay flower arrangements and still lives of her earlier work are modest and tentatively sculpted miniatures. The variations on these themes she created for this exhibition are effortlessly grand in execution and reference to the experience of contemporary architecture as easily as they do to personal and timeless emotions like solace and doubt.

It stands to reason that her work takes on a new physical appearance to accompany her broadened conceptual framework. Besides her well-known photographs of architectural collages she will present a selection of light-boxes and three dimensional objects that take on a more interactive relationship with the space in which they are presented. By making clever use of transparency and both natural and artificial light Popel creates photographic works that can respond to the proportions of the gallery and even to the time someone spends as a visitor of the exhibition. These pieces reward a patient spectator. After a while strict volumes loose their hard edge and horizons will start to shift between memories, abstractions and fever dreams.

Popel Coumou (1978) lives and works in Amsterdam. Her works is represented by TORCH gallery Amsterdam and LMAK gallery in New York. She graduated from the Rietveld Academy in 2004 and has exhibited her work worldwide since then. Her works is part of the collections of the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, Huis Marseille and Foam in Amsterdam, Dela, Statoil and many other private and public collections. Besides her autonomous work she has also made consigned pieces for Hèrmes, the Amsterdam Hilton and Mercure hotels. Recently her work has been shown at LMAK New York, Photo Dubai, Culture centre Mechelen, the Valkhof museum and Unseen Photo fair.