Rick Lowe: Harbour Fragments

Gagosian is pleased to announce Harbour Fragments, an exhibition of new paintings by Rick Lowe. These works abstract from aerial views of Hong Kong that feature sections of Victoria Harbour, Hong Kong Island, and Kowloon Peninsula, interpreting the dynamic metropolis. On view at the gallery’s location in Hong Kong’s Central district from September 11 through November 1, this is Lowe’s first solo exhibition in Asia.

Taking an exploratory approach to geography and abstraction, Lowe’s practice encompasses both studio work and community-based projects that address urban transformation. His vibrant canvases employ the visual languages of painting, collage, and cartography. These paintings emerge from an improvisational approach derived in part from games of dominoes that Lowe plays with residents worldwide, adapting their intricate patterns and juxtapositions to foreground aspects of urban structures and civic relationships.

To produce Harbour Fragments, Lowe initially made a single large-scale painting measuring 12 × 28 feet (3.6 × 8.5 meters) across twenty-one canvases measuring 4 × 4 feet (1.2 × 1.2 meters) each. He then split the composition into nine individual works of one, two, four, or six canvases each, further developing each painting by adjusting its visual elements and in some cases its orientation. All but two of the panels feature a segment of Victoria Harbour, highlighting the essential relationship between water and land in shaping Hong Kong’s past and present.