Sylvain Malfroy-Camine | Scherzo: Birmingham

October 22 - November 26, 2022
Installation Views
Works
Events
Artist's Statement
David Klein Gallery, 163 Townsend Street, Birmingham, Michigan, is pleased to announce the opening of Scherzo, a presentation of new paintings by the Detroit based artist, Sylvain Malfroy-Camine. A reception for the artist will take place on Saturday, October 22, 5-7 PM.
 
The artist notes: “Scherzo is a kind of musical composition that also means ‘joke’ in Italian. In titling the show this way, I hope to imply music in the work shown, but also to lightly question the amusing notion of music’s relationship to painting, since paintings are notoriously silent.” 
 
Scherzo features Malfroy-Camine’s most recent paintings on a grand scale, with a palette reminiscent of the Impressionists and Pointillists of the early 20th century. The work also reveals a relationship to Larry Poons’ colorfield paintings of the early 1960s with their painterly dots and ellipses.
 
“I make work improvisationally, allowing marks to build upon each other or fall into a din of chaos. I mix colors slowly on the palette, read the activity taking place in the painting, and deliberate my next moves as I decide where the painting ought to go. In this way, I don’t presuppose the painting, and allow it to move by some chance and by some choice, until it arrives into harbor, freshly painted, or dinged and dented…” Sylvain Malfroy-Camine, October 2022
 
Sylvain Malfroy-Camine received his BA in Art at University of Massachusetts, Boston and an MFA in Painting at Cranbrook Academy of Art, Bloomfield Hills, MI. A first-generation American, Malfroy-Camine grew up near Boston and spent childhood summers visiting family in France. Time spent there left him with the impressions of the light and landscapes of that country, impressions which remain with him to this day.
Back to Past exhibitions