Alex Colard

Private location – Alex Colard – The Secret Exhibition – March 16 to December 2022 – private viewing available via email request to info@alexcolardart.com

ABOUT the artist
Alex Colard b. 1985, has an art degree from Parsons New York USA, and Bellecour Lyon France. He lives and works in Stockholm, Sweden. Colard’s recent project can be described as large handcrafted canvases, they touch on the subjects of three-dimensional technology, spiritualism, and contemporary paint. Colard decided it was time to be a professional artist full-time in 2017 and had 27 exhibitions since then. His objective is to bring color and meaning to people’s walls and keep the city vibrant thanks to his events that gather various people.

ABOUT the exhibition
The Private Location proudly presents The Secret Exhibition, a solo exhibition by French artist Alex Colard. The exhibition is comprised of fifteen never-before-seen painted works on canvas executed between 2021-2022.

Colard’s artistry is characterized by his personal life chapters, his past in architecture, and his fascination for ancient civilizations. Through its unique combination of 3D rendering and paint, he creates a multidimensional universe, a sophisticated borderland between minimalist and conceptual art. The Secret Exhibition is based on last year’s work, where perspective is a central motif. The abstract images of geometry and volumes are set against contemporary spiritualism, which today has different meanings.

His latest works are a reflection of his mother’s death when he was ten years old, and his quest to find her in temples, ruins, and churches during his travels. He went to Teotihuacan in Mexico, Mysore in India, and Borobudur in Java Indonesia among others. He experiences different cultures, textiles, stones, shapes, and lights. He prayed in Bali to be able to one day build his own resort in an exotic destination and chose to express that need for urban planning in this new collection. He was inspired by the recent sculptures of Frank Stella, the distorted cubes of Sol LeWitt, the engeneering of Frank Gehry, and the outre-noir concept of Pierre Soulages.

He uses airbrush to create dream-like backgrounds characterized by many layers, and water-based paints that make the paintings contemporary. He uses an extremely black, matte, velvet paint against glossy acrylic surfaces, creating a disappearing motif depending on the point of view. Colard portrays the notion of loss; family members are metaphorically represented by lost civilizations. He utilizes various beige, camel, and sand colors to suggest dry deserts. White is also present, in the form of new ultra-modern white: Purdue University invented the paint in April 2021, it reflects 98% of the sunlight, keeps architecture cool, and Colard uses the available version for artists imported from London.

On view at The Secret Exhibition are fifteen new works evoking sophistication and elegance. Some are divided into smaller canvases, some are two-meter by two-meter. Colard cuts the planks of wood, glues them, sands them, creates the frames, and stretches the canvas. He witnessed his grandfather carving lifesize sculptures, and learn perspective from him when he was eight years old, consequently, the artist replicates such craftsmanship as a way of preserving memories and the family name.

Colard’s painting continues to reflect his artistic research, currently through form collected from an ongoing immersion in the history of art and humankind. In this practice, 3d-techniques become a part of his experimentations, also, his evolution continues with 3d-printing and oil painting.

ABOUT the gallery
Private location, Vasatan. The venue is a 500sqm meeting place in Stockholm that offers a unique combination of food, entertainment, and events. A pool table, pinball machine, table tennis, and car simulator room are available, it is possible to arrange everything from movie screenings in your own cinema lounge, and VR.

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