David Zwirner is pleased to announce an exhibition of new works by Italian, Ethiopian-born painter Jem Perucchini (b. 1995), opening at the gallery’s Tribeca location in New York. Following recent solo presentations at Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, and Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Seville, this will be the artist’s first exhibition in the United States.
Perucchini’s distinctive body of work draws on a range of influences, from early Italian Renaissance painting and the patterns of African wax print textiles to ancient Greek mythology and frescoes in Ethiopian churches. Populating seemingly familiar narrative scenes with a singular cast of characters often youthful, lithe, and inscrutable in appearance, Perucchini expands the language of figurative painting while deftly mining tropes from religious iconography and traditional portraiture. His striking compositions are frequently dominated by monochromatic jewellike hues and illuminated by a glowing spherical moon or sun; his subjects embody a saturated world that is at once past, present, and imagined. Existing outside of any familiar historical chronology, Perucchini’s intricately painted and textured scenes evoke timeless tensions and nuances of the human experience—solitude and partnership, the archetype and the individual, light and darkness.
52 Walker