Jakup Auce by John Gillis at CINNNAMON

Artist: Jakup Auce by John Gillis

Exhibition title: Digital Distortions

Venue: CINNNAMON, Rotterdam, The Netherlands

Date: September 9 – October 13, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and CINNNAMON, Rotterdam

Vocabulary of solitude

CINNNAMON is pleased to present its second solo show at the gallery by Jakup Auce by John Gillis (*the first solo show at the gallery was under the moniker of ‘Jakup Auce’).

For this show, Auce/Gillis created three new abstract embroideries (wool on fabric).

These works are the first truly abstract works the artist shows, whereas previous series of works have been figurative, albeit abstracted. Despite the current show’s title – Digital Distortions – there are no traces of digital techniques in these works. The embroideries are tactile and soft, the compositions are intuitive rather than mathematical. These works tell us that matter matters, as well as the making process. The dynamic spontaneity of the lines and loops are in contrast with their time consuming execution. In the solitary confinement of his studio, Auce has worked worked day and night to create these works. Whereas the artist’s other bodies of work – for example Auce’s previous show at the gallery Explicit, Scratches and Objects (2017) – explore the destructive implications of modern life, these new works present themselves as a remedy against the overload of information and stimuli that has become essential to modern life. Bold, vibrant, and therapeutic at their core, the works in Digital Distortions might be read as beacons of hope in a (digitally or otherwise) distorted world.

Jakup Auce by John Gillis (Brussels 1972), lives and works in Brussels.

Solo shows include: DE ELLENDE VAN JOB, trampoline, Antwerp / IT SEEMS SO LONG AGO, DASH, Kortrijk, BE / Explicit, Scrathches and Objects, CINNNAMON Rotterdam / Lazy Boy, Nosbaum Reding Projects, Luxembourg / Fell in love with the wolf, In Extenso, Clermont-Ferrand, FR. Group shows include: Physical Fiction (curator: Jasmijn Yarram), Garage, Rotterdam / Zig Zag, Frederic De Goldschmidt Collection, Brussels / TRUST: Copenhagen Art Festival (curator: Sonia Dermience), Copenhagen, DK / Splash, Can And Cock (curators: Sonia Dermience & Alberto García del Castillo), Komplot, Brussels.

From 2000-2013 Auce worked as part of the artist duo Aline Bouvy & John Gillis. They have shown at, amongst others: Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen / Witte de With – Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam / Mu.zee, Oostende / Kunstmuseum Bonn / The Modern Institute, Glasgow / Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven / Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels.