Modern Art are pleased to present a two-person show with Otto Boll and Jef Verheyen. This is the gallery’s first show with both artists.

The exhibition comprises a series of sculptures by Boll, made during the 1980s through to 2015, in combination with a selection of paintings by Verheyen dating from the mid-1970s. Positioned in response to the architecture of the gallery, and to each other, the works articulate certain kinds of perceptual and philosophical experiences through acutely crafted formal dialogues between light and shadow, line, colour, and abstraction.

Otto Boll’s minimalist steel, aluminium and nylon sculptures made from the 1970s and 1980s challenge visual perception. Suspended mid-air, their extremities are so finely chiseled that they appear to dissolve at the edges. They oscillate between two- and three-dimensional objects; slight, elegant black forms that cut through space, as if demarcating the end of physical and the beginning of the abstract or symbolic. Boll’s works included in the exhibition have been selected for their particular explorations of space, both inside and outside the frame, and the interplays they create between illusory and physical planar depth. This is highlighted through their positioning in conversation with Verheyen’s paintings that offer their own parallel renderings of the same set of principles.

Working most prolifically between 1956 and 1978, Jef Verheyen’s paintings emerged out of the language of geometric abstraction. His life’s work was an investigation of colour, light, and structure, through gradually evolving methodical processes of paint application. Most often he used water-based paint with a matt finish, as well as matt lacquer in the later stages of his oeuvre, building it up in translucent layers to achieve subtle gradations of colour. Verheyen’s works are considered an important part of Belgium’s canon of Modernist Abstraction.

Otto Boll was born in 1952 in Issum/Geldern, Germany. He lives and works in Niederrhein, Germany. He studied at the Düsseldorf academy in the class of Ernst Hermanns between 1975 and 1980. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Axel Vervoordt Gallery, Hong Kong (2017); Dierking, Zürich, Switzerland (2015); Schönewald Fine Arts, Düsseldorf, Germany (2011); Goethe-Institut, Houston, USA (1998); Galerie Heinz Herzer, Munich, Germany (1993). He has been included in group exhibitions in institutions including Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, Italy (2015); Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Kunstmuseum Gelsenkirchen, Germany (2015); Galerie Forsblom, Helsinki, Finland (2015); Städtische Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, Germany (1996); Skulpturenmuseum Marl, Germany (1995); Kunsthalle Köln, Cologne; NBK in der Staatliche Kunsthalle Berlin; and Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, Germany (1986-1987). Boll has received several awards including the Karl-Schmit-Rottluff scholarship, the Jürgen Ponto Foundation and the Young West Art Prize.

Jef Verheyen was born in Itegem, Belgium in 1932. He exhibited widely throughout Europe between 1950 up until his death in 1984, in Apt, France. He was included in the Belgium pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1970. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at galleries and institutions including Langen Foundation, Art and Exhibition House, Neuss, Germany (2010); Axel Vervoordt Kanaal, Antwerp, Belgium (2004); Hubertus Schoeller Gallery, Dusseldorf, Germany (1997); Gallery Edith Wahlandt, Stuttgart, Germany (1994); Kunstmuseum Dusseldorf, Dusseldorf, Germany (1973); Musee Cantini, Marseille, France (1972); Belgian House, Cologne, Germany (1969); Aujourd'hui Gallery, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, Belgium (1964). His work has been included in recent group exhibitions at institutions including Upper Austrian Provincial Museum, Linz, Austria (2017-18); Axel & May Vervoordt Foundation, Fondazione Musei Civici di Venezia, Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, Italy (2017); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2015); Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, London, United Kingdom (2015); Palazzo Fortuny, Venice, Italy (2015); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, USA (2014); MuZEE, Ostend, Belgium (2013); and Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland (2002).