RAPHAELA SIMON: SHELTER FROM THE COLD
Galerie Max Hetzler, Paris, is pleased to present Shelter from the cold, a solo exhibition of work by Raphaela Simon. This is the artist’s sixth solo presentation with the gallery, and her second in the Paris space.
January 18 - February 22, 2025
Presenting eleven new paintings and one sculpture, Shelter from the cold continues Simon’s enquiry into questions of physicality and bodily autonomy in her signature style, depicting simple, contextless forms against monochromatic backdrops. Playing with our desire to imbue forms with meaning, the works vacillate between hot and cold, exposure and shelter, figuration and abstraction.
Simon paints in several stages, overpainting and altering elements in a continuous process that allows traces of previous layers to seep through. In the present compositions, subjects are rendered against viscous black and deep red, drawing the viewer’s gaze into the void while simultaneously asserting the painting’s material solidity.
Several compositions depict heads subjected to degrees of confinement or cold. In Fall, two mask-like heads tumble to unknown depths, while Icebox renders them imprisoned in an icy cage. Two further heads are plunged into water in The Bathers, conveying both a sense of psychic entrapment and an awareness of volume and surface tension. The painting’s title encapsulates the artist’s signature wit: in place of Cézanne’s renowned painting of leisurely bathers, Simon delivers a hostile plunge.
Beyond their existential dimension, these works convey Simon’s keen interest in materials and patterns, particularly those found in the everyday. In Shelter from the cold and Shelter from the out, gridded lines in pink, red and black assume sculptural volume, suggesting the warm padding of a winter jacket – an enclosure or shelter of a safer kind. Polka dots, too, have both innocent and foreboding associations; they appear on a pair of boots radiating with heat and, in another composition, stand in for teeth surrounding a gaping mouth.