During Brussels Gallery Weekend a few weeks back, Almine Rech opened a debut solo show by Haley Josephs, introducing a big body of work comprising masterfully painted large to small-size canvases often revolving around the idea of reflection and connection. Shaping her work from the intense personal emotions and momentous experiences, Psychopomp is entitled after the Greek word for the guide of souls, a term existing in many religions, beliefs, and cultures around the world.
Dominated by the almost cliché girly-looking yet unfettered, resistant, and exuberant child-like muses, the majority of works is permeated with the sense of deeply personal, almost metaphysical connection and attachment. This atmosphere is the result of Josephs’ ongoing reexamination and reacceptence of her sister's passing at a very young age and the intense emotional states influenced by it. By channeling such emotions in the form of a painting, she is constructing surreal scenery and scenarios in which the irreversible reality clashes with her dreams and fantasies. In combination with the flowing brush work and the intense spectrum of hyper vibrant colors that intuitively warm the heart, Josephs is drawing out an alternative storyline of a parallel life that never happened.
Thinking of a psychopomp's role, a deity whose responsibility is to escort newly deceased souls from Earth to the afterlife, Josephs is depicting different scenarios in which transformation, rebirth, death, and/or womanhood are explored through spirited images starring often mirrored young girls. This collision of generally opposing and unrelatable notions, childhood and death, comes to surface with a stark contrast between the vibrancy of glowing colors and the intensity of grieving emotions that hold the work together. The continuity of sunset/sunrise setting and the presence of natural elements places the imagery into a universal, earthly sphere while pushing it towards borderline psychedelic ambience. This is done by working with intuitive, gestured brushwork and exceptionally bright, highly pigmented color choices. A couple of paintings include raw, white background and strokes that dissolve into canvas' eternity, further underlining the otherworldly ambiance of these visuals. By mixing the sadness with playfulness, child-like naivety with adulthood concerns or difficulty to deal with intense experiences out of our control, Josephs’ visuals are playfully poignant as they present both twisted and romanticized metaphors for human ephemerality with an accent on female experiences and conditions.
Marking this exhibition, Almine Rech Editions (https://shop.alminerech.com/) is releasing a limited edition print Rise, 2021, in an edition of 75 + 20 APs, which will be available for purchase from September 30th. - Sasha Bogojev
