Nicholas Byrne and Doris Guo
Press release
VI, VII is delighted to participate in the 20th edition of Frieze Art Fair in London. At Frieze, the gallery presents selected works by London based artist Nicholas Byrne and American artist, Doris Guo. Guo’s projector based and mezzotint works explore distances and everyday experiences of the unfamiliar through the construction of mysterious forms, while Byrne dives into metal work and figurative abstraction through the medium of painting and sculpture.
NICHOLAS BYRNE
Nicholas Byrne’s oil paintings on copper unite abstract and figurative elements with a strong sensibility for colour and formal harmony. A key part of Byrne’s work is his interest in symbols and forms with recurring motifs and geometric shapes, which the artist overlays with areas of colour rendered in different textures.
Exploring Byrne’s practice in 2021, Tom Morton writes, “While Byrne concedes that his work has the general ‘stink’ of mid-century British Modernism, it is more concerned with the stewardship and perversion of a visual language that he has found himself working in since his schooldays than the blithe appropriation of a currently fashionable episode from the history of art. Byrne has described himself as a ‘handler’ of his works and while their cuts and scratches recall the necessary wounds of surgery, they also recall more trivial bodily incursions: the running of a comb’s teeth through tangled hair, or the pressing of a stud into a fleshy earlobe.”
Nicholas Byrne (b. 1979, UK) lives and works in London. Solo and two-person exhibitions include: Liver of Sulphur, VI, VII, Oslo; LOVE, Cold Shower, with Anthea Hamilton, Schinkel Pavilion, Berlin; Finish your sentence, and Roleplay at Vilma Gold, London; Faces, with Nora Schultz, dépendance, Brussels; Divider, Studio Voltaire, London.
Group exhibitions include: Death, Volcano Extravaganza, Fiorucci Art Trust, Stromboli; Burning Down the House, with Anthea Hamilton, 10th Gwangju Biennale; Public Private Paintings, Kunstmuseum Ann Zee, Oostende; The Dark Monarch, Tate St Ives, St Ives.
Byrne’s works are in the collection of the Kistefos Museum, Norway; the Saatchi collection, Zabludowicz Collection, London and the collection of the Loewe Foundation, Madrid.
DORIS GUO
Doris Guo’s general approach comes out of a desire to capture ambient dispositions toward the social patterns and ritual dimensions of living. Rather than providing an explicit narrative that her sculptures become remnants of, she suggests oblique narratives and feelings by repurposing and recreating disparate objects and materials worn by human usage.
Working with a variety of materials and media the bodies of work she produces often come from a journalistic approach to the feelings and affects of lived experience.
The ambiences of the day-to-day remain a starting point of her practice as she works with readymades and the visual languages of interior spaces.
Originally from America’s Northwest, Doris Guo (b. 1992, United States) lives and works in Oslo and holds an MA from Oslo National Academy of the Arts.
Guo’s work has been presented at VI, VII; Crèvecoeur, Paris; Galerie Maria Bernheim, Zurich; and the galleries 47 Canal, Bodega, Fisher Parrish and Real Fine Arts in New York. In December 2023 the artist will open a solo exhibition at Empty Gallery in Hong Kong.
Support for this project has been generously provided by OCA, Norway’s Office for Contemporary Art, and Vitra.
Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Oil on copper
145 × 240 × 4 cm (57 ⅛ × 94 ½ × 1 ⅝ inches)
Oil on copper
145 × 240 × 4 cm (57 ⅛ × 94 ½ × 1 ⅝ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Oil on copper
190 × 110 × 4 cm (74 ¾ × 43 ¼ × 1 ⅝ inches)
Oil on copper
190 × 110 × 4 cm (74 ¾ × 43 ¼ × 1 ⅝ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Oil on copper
175 × 120 × 4 cm (68 ⅞ × 47 ¼ × 1 ⅝ inches)
Oil on copper
175 × 120 × 4 cm (68 ⅞ × 47 ¼ × 1 ⅝ inches)
Detail of Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Detail of Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Nicholas Byrne, Liver of Sulphur, 2016–2022
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Liver of Sulphur, 2016–2022
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Liver of Sulphur, 2016–2022
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Detail of Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2016-2022
Nicholas Byrne, Liver of Sulphur, 2016–2022
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches) (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Liver of Sulphur, 2016–2022
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Oil on copper
50 × 35 × 1 cm (19 ⅝ × 13 ¾ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
50 × 35 × 1 cm (19 ⅝ × 13 ¾ × ⅜ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Untitled, 2023
Oil on copper
50 × 35 × 1 cm (19 ⅝ × 13 ¾ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
50 × 35 × 1 cm (19 ⅝ × 13 ¾ × ⅜ inches)
Nicholas Byrne, Curls, 2010
Mild steel
87 × 87 × 29 cm (34 ¼ × 34 ¼ × 11 ⅜ inches)
Mild steel
87 × 87 × 29 cm (34 ¼ × 34 ¼ × 11 ⅜ inches)
Doris Guo, Kitchen Bathroom Confusion, 2023
Wood, paint, hardware, stainless steel, vinyl, plastic, opaque projector
Wood, paint, hardware, stainless steel, vinyl, plastic, opaque projector
Doris Guo, Kitchen Bathroom Confusion, 2023
Wood, paint, hardware, stainless steel, vinyl, plastic, opaque projector
Wood, paint, hardware, stainless steel, vinyl, plastic, opaque projector
Doris Guo, Travel, 2023
Wood, paint, hardware, copper, plastic, polyester, opaque projector
Wood, paint, hardware, copper, plastic, polyester, opaque projector
(Detail) Doris Guo, Travel, 2023, Wood, paint, hardware, copper, plastic, polyester, opaque projector, Dimensions variable
Nicholas Byrne, Liver of Sulphur, 2016–2022
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
Oil on copper
110 × 60 × 1 cm (43 ¼ × 23 ⅝ × ⅜ inches)
