Templon Gallery in New York has lifted the veil on Whispered Tales, a new solo exhibition by Belgian artist Hans Op de Beeck, now on view through December 21, 2024. Known for his evocative, monochromatic sculptures, Op de Beek transforms the gallery space into a playground of frozen figures. Blending classical sculptural techniques with a cinematographic sensibility, the artist explores the fleeting essence of existence, capturing tender moments before they fade away forever.
From a young ballerina posed in her mother’s oversized high heels to an ornamental Victorian carousel full of skeletal riders, the artist flutters between the eternal and ephemeral in a series of silent scenes. “The way the artist plays with the perception of scale and atmosphere sparks a disconnect, a feeling of strangeness when confronted with scenes lifted out of the ordinary,” the gallery writes.
It is through Op de Beeck’s signature gray palette that this strange, dreamlike atmosphere emerges. As places and people are stripped from their expected hue, and instead, and cast into a dust-colored world, the artist renders the ordinary through an alchemical gaze. In this search of what lays “underneath the skin of reality,” Whispered Tales invites viewers to pause, reflect and find fantasy in the quiet fragments of life.
Templon
293 10th Ave,
New York, NY 10001