In what is set to be the highlight of their Summer 2021 calendar, HOFA Gallery, London, will host ‘Coronation‘, a solo exhibition by prolific contemporary figurative painter Loribelle Spirovski, between the 2– 16 June this year. The upcoming exhibition, comprised entirely of new artworks created during the 2020 lockdown, delves into the effects of recent international epoch-making events on private life as distilled through the lens of the artist’s mind.
‘Coronation’ builds on many of the themes and motifs audiences have seen in her past critically acclaimed collections like ‘Hommes’ and ‘Memento Mori’. It is also a potent play on words whose double meaning points to the Covid-19 pandemic as well as the political power shifts and significant moments occurring simultaneously which continue to exert mammoth influences on the external and internal lives of people everywhere.
In her new collection, Loribelle explores familiar and poignant themes with an urgency that speaks to the moment, employing her signature line technique to delineate eyes, faces and human forms entangled and abstracted into the minimalist geometric background which represents the room of the mind. She notes that “With the pandemic reducing the worlds of many to the confines of their phone screen, [the] ‘room’ motif seems more pertinent than ever…as a metaphor for the mind and the characters and scenes inhabiting it, signifying the external world filtered into the subconscious.”
The tenuousness of a reality mediated by technology and social media distortions is yet another strong theme of ‘Coronation’. However, the overarching theme is undoubtedly the inescapable reckoning all must face with history. As power shifts in the US reverberate around the world, ‘Coronation’ compels viewers to interrogate the things that hold sovereign power in their lives, prefaced on the recognition that there is need for a re-orientation, repudiation, or re-affirmation of individual commitments.
By her own account, Loribelle was no stranger to the emotional turmoil many experienced during lockdown. The pressures of living with restricted access to family, friends, and the outdoors while news of Covid-19 casualties trickled in forced the artist to take a stand against looming mortality by rediscovering and reaffirming the purpose of her art as a medium for self-expression and for exhuming the hidden contentions of the mind. ‘Coronation’ is an outcome of this defiance and the show will run at HOFA’s flagship gallery in Mayfair for 2 weeks from 2 to 16 as both an in-gallery show and a virtual exhibition, for all to enjoy.
‘Coronation‘ opens at HOFA Gallery, London on 2 June and runs for two weeks until 16 June 2021.
A parallel virtual show will also be accessible to all online via a secure weblink.
In compliance with Covid-19 safety protocols, all visits to the gallery will be strictly on RSVP basis.
