Davide Balliano: Exhibition design and curation by Charlap Hyman & Herrero

Tina Kim Gallery presents the paintings and sculptures of New York-based artist Davide Balliano, in a solo exhibition designed and curated by Charlap Hyman & Herrero.  

Balliano is known for his hypnotically essential black and white paintings of ancient, linear geometries and monumental sculptures. In this show, his distilled compositions quietly pulsate with a mysterious yet familiar tension. Undulating coils of meticulously applied gesso subtly weave from the foreground to the background of his canvases, off their edges and seemingly into thin air. The paintings are visually dense, exuding an undeniable gravitas, while appearing almost weightless. 

Formally, Balliano’s paintings are excavations of something eternal - fragments and suggestions of patterns that are recognized more than they can be understood. Radiating from surfaces that are pocked, scraped, scarred and faded, his uncanny network of serpentine lines suggests a process of extraction rather than application. By obscuring time in this way, Balliano is able to purify the encounter with his optical phenomena.  

Hung in a series of spaces that are separated by walls creasing in and out like strips of folded paper, Balliano’s paintings rhythmically come into view. Spliced-arch portals that recall a distorted classical architectural language, central to the artist’s practice, connect the rooms. A simple gesture at first glance, these strange symmetries echo the mesmerizing glyphs on the gallery’s walls. A silvery reflective sculpture sits at the center of this maze, compressing and twisting the room in its concave, ageless exterior.

ABOUT DAVIDE BALLIANO 

Davide Balliano’s (b. 1983, Turin) research operates on the thin line of demarcation between painting and sculpture. Utilizing an austere, minimal language of abstract geometries in strong dialogue with architecture, his work investigates existential themes such as the identity of man in the age of technology and his relationship with the sublime. Through a practice that is self-described as monastic, austere and concrete, Balliano’s meticulous paintings appear, upon first glance, clean and precise. However, closer inspection reveals scrapes and scratches that uncover the surface underneath the layers of paint, as a decaying façade of abandoned modernistic intentions. 
In addition to painting, Davide Balliano is also known for his sculptural work, which translates the visual vocabulary found in his paintings into solid objects, often in ceramic, wood or stone. Originally trained in photography, Balliano shifted to painting and sculpture in 2006 while relocating to New York City, where he currently resides and works. 
Recent solo exhibitions include presentations at Museo Novecento, Florence (2019), ​Dirimart Gallery, Istanbul (2019)​, Tina Kim Gallery, New York (2019 & 2017), Museo MARCA Catanzaro (2018), Bottega Veneta Maison, New York (2018), 39 Great Jones, New York (2018), Luce Gallery, Turin (2017 & 2015), Timothy Taylor Gallery, London (2015), Room East, New York (2014), Rolando Anselmi Galerie, Berlin (2014 and 2012), Galerie Michael Rein, Paris (2013), Location One, New York (2011), The Artists Space, New York (2009). His work has been included in numerous group exhibitions, including Magazzino Italian Art, New York (2020), David Zwirner Gallery, New York (2015), Sean Kelly Gallery, New York (2014 and 2010), Madre Museum, Naples (2012), The Watermill Center, New York (2011 and 2009), MoMA PS1, New York (2010), Espace d’Art Contemporain de Castello, Castellon, Spain (2010). 

ABOUT CHARLAP HYMAN & HERRERO 

Charlap Hyman & Herrero is an architecture and design firm that takes a fully integrated approach to conceptualizing and executing spaces in their totality. Principals Andre Herrero and Adam Charlap Hyman lead a practice that considers all aspects of the built environment, from site plan to furniture. Working in various typologies CHH endeavors to create spaces that become worlds unto themselves, with gesamtkunstwerk at the core of the firm’s objective.