Tristram Lansdowne
Sympathies

May 12 to June 11, 2022

Galerie Nicolas Robert is pleased to present the exhibition Sympathies, by Tristram Lansdowne. Evolving from the domestic interiors featured in previous paintings, Tristram Lansdowne’s new exhibition takes the concept of vacancy into cognitive realms. With a futuro-minimalist take on synthetic realism and a nod to 17th-century vanitas still life, these paintings work with contrasting symbols of wealth and decay to inform semi-fictional spaces that invite the viewer to ruminate on desire, anxiety, and the transience of life. Taking sympathy as an organizing principle, they become an absurdist game of proximity that sets up parameters within which to explore our sense of perception. Windows, mirrors, doorways, and the one-to-one scale of still-life elements pull us in, while frosted glass, darkened backgrounds, awkwardly tight framing, and flattened exteriors push us back out again. This fluctuating state of immersion and separation is made uncannier still by the careful placement of relatable but mismatched household items that seem to indicate an alien, or perhaps digital, attempt at staging human habitat. It is as though these spaces exist to serve an eerie and not entirely human embodiment of capitalism, where the body, sanitized beyond existence, seeks itself through sympathetic relationships between objects and their surroundings.

Originally from Victoria (BC), Tristram Lansdowne lives and works in Toronto (ON). He holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design (2016) and a BFA from the Ontario College of Art & Design (2007). Recent exhibitions include Volery Gallery, Dubai, New Art Projects, London, and Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery. His work can be found in numerous private and public collections in Canada and the United States, including the National Gallery of Canada, the Kitchener Waterloo Art Gallery, TD Bank, Royal Bank of Canada, BMO Bank of Montreal, and the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.