source: artsynet

Harold Ancart combines paintings, drawings, and mixed media sculptures into large installations that draw attention to the social and architectural condition of the space in which the work is exhibited. “I like to envision exhibits not so much as a succession of objects to be looked at, but as tensions created between the various zones of emptiness.” The subtlety of Ancart’s interventions into space mirror his use of evanescent materials for mark-making; he incorporates ink, charcoal powder, soot, and dark traces left behind by flames into his works. Presenting concrete, epoxy resin, and steel sculptures alongside burnt found photographs and abstract paintings, Ancart displays an interest in biomorphic forms and landscapes.
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source: xavierhufkens

Harold Ancart’s creative process involves drawing and space. Allowing for chance and repetition, he often works in situ creating sculptural installations with found objects, minimal traces, and graphic underlining to reveal the surfaces, the specificities and the situation of the place. Thread structures, lines, open cubes, concrete and steel point to these architectural and environmental considerations. He says: “I like to envision exhibits not so much as a succession of objects to be looked at, but as tensions created between the various zones of emptiness.” His use of materials such as ink, charcoal powder or soot lends his works on paper and wall drawings a certain delicacy and immediacy. He is fascinated by the marks left by flames, which he sees as the unintentional result of the burning process that he has activated. Colourful burnt photographs, taken from the popular culture of leisure and tourism, counteract the overall minimal character of his interventions. Deliberately recurring motifs include the parrot, the jungle, and palm trees.

Harold Ancart was invited to contribute work to Melanchotopia, organised by Witte de With in Rotterdam in 2011. Other important group shows include UN-SCENE II, Wiels–Contemporary Arts Centre, Brussels (2012) and A Stone Left Unturned, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris (2013).

Harold Ancart was born in Brussels, Belgium, in 1980. He lives and works in New York.