Henry Orlik: Cosmos of Dreams: Maas Gallery, 6 Duke Street, St James’s, London SW1Y 6BN
‘They say I’m surrealistic. I just paint’
- Henry Orlik, 1972
In 1974 Henry Orlik’s (b.1947) work was included alongside great Surrealist artists such as René Magritte, Yves Tanguy and Salvador Dali in Surrealist Masters (Acoris, The Surrealist Art Centre, Brook Street, London). In the years following the exhibition Orlik created some of his most exciting and dynamic work but due to his increasingly reclusive lifestyle many of these works have remained hidden and unseen.
Orlik’s work explores the breadth of human experience. His paintings, formed of thousands of tiny, spiralled brushstrokes, which Orlik refers to as his ‘excitations’, suffuse the solid and often monumental forms depicted with energy and vitality. Orlik took the term excitations from his reading on quantum physics as the term is used to describe the excited state of an entity reacting to a stimulus. Like atoms and electrons, the elements of Orlik’s work are full of energy and motion; undulating waves, rippling fabric, moving aircraft and writhing bodies create the impression that the canvas is in the process of rearranging itself into some new scene or figure.
These dream-like paintings examine the fluid nature of time, space, memory and experience and are not bound by rules of reality. His extraordinary, sensual and witty images cohere into seemingly rational worlds which somehow, by a trick of memory perhaps or déjà vu, seem strangely familiar and intelligible.
Recent exhibitions and scholarship have examined the spread of Surrealism beyond the boundaries of interwar France, exploring the influence of Surrealist artists and their ideals on postwar, international artists in Britain and beyond. Whilst André Breton’s Surrealist movement died with the onset of the Second World War artists such as Henry Orlik demonstrate that the artistic impulse to depict the unconscious and surreal extended further into the 20th century.
Visitor information
Free Entry (No Booking Required)
9th - 20th August 2024 (Monday - Sunday 10am - 5.30pm)Location: The Maas Gallery, 6 Duke Street, St. James's, London SW1Y 6BN
For all enquiries please contact enquiries@winsorbirch.com
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Henry Orlik, DREAM Sold -
Henry Orlik, THE END Sold
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Henry Orlik, BEAUTY AND SHARKS Sold
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Henry Orlik, DEFEAT (AEROPLANE OVER LA) Sold
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Henry Orlik, END OF AN AFFAIR Sold
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Henry Orlik, OASIS Sold
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Henry Orlik, THE PARTING Sold
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Henry Orlik, BEVERLY HILLS Sold
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Henry Orlik, SURREAL LANDSCAPE Sold
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Henry Orlik, WIN OR LOSE Sold
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Henry Orlik, ANTICHRIST Sold
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Henry Orlik, CANNON BALLOONS Sold
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Henry Orlik, FRIENDS Sold
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Henry Orlik, GREEN STILETTO Sold
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Henry Orlik, NYC-GRAND CENTRAL Sold
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Henry Orlik, SUKA Sold
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Henry Orlik, HENPECKED Sold
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Henry Orlik, KITE Sold
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Henry Orlik, LOVERS Sold
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Henry Orlik, MOTHER FLIGHT Sold
Winsor Birch presents rediscovered, surrealist artist Henry Orlik in a new exhibition at the Maas Gallery, London
Winsor Birch is delighted to present Cosmos of Dreams: Rediscovering the Locked-UpGenius of Henry Orlik at the Maas Gallery in Duke Street, St James’s (9th August – 20thAugust 2024), curated well known paintings specialist Grant Ford. As well as marking the centenary of Surrealism, this exhibition marks fifty years since Orlik exhibited at Acoris, the renowned Surrealist Art Centre in Brook Street in the prestigious West End of London in 1974 where his work was included alongside Surrealist greats Salvador Dali, Giorgio de Chirico, Francis Picabia and René Magritte.
Orlik was only twenty-five when his work was received with enthusiasm at his first solo-exhibition at Acoris in 1972; he subsequently exhibited there and at other top London galleries in the 1970s. In 1980 Orlik moved to the US for four years to gain inspiration for his art. On his return to London, he focused solely on his art, leading a life of solitary patient immersion in his art, selling some paintings privately but shunning large-scale exhibitions. The commercial world of dealers, agents and auction houses was not for Henry as he was suspicious of their motivations.
The themes in Orlik’s art are influenced by his family history and memories of childhood as well as the exploration of time and space. His work appears extraordinarily current as he conceptualises enigmatic observations of quantum science which he evokes with meticulous, spirals of paint which suggest the shimmering movement of quantumparticles; each minute stroke of paint represents its own unique unit of energy and collectively each of Orlik’s canvasses exudes a mysterious energy that takes the viewer to another world of intense, thought-provoking images.
Intertwined bodies and body parts, anthropomorphic landscapes, mother nature, deserts, clowns, shells, space, the lack of integrity in politics, birth and death are all themes which intermingle in his dream-worlds, where his extraordinary sensual and witty images cohere into seemingly rational worlds which somehow, by a trick of memory perhaps or déjà vu, seem strangely familiar and intelligible.
Sadly in 2022, Orlik suffered a stroke which has paralysed his right side, and he continues in poor health. While he was in hospital, his housing association evicted him and subsequently over two hundred of his paintings were taken from his flat in London.
“I have been involved in the art world for 38 years and I have never come across such an extraordinary group of paintings by and artist that should be considered one of our greats. All of these dreams and incredible thoughts have been locked away for decades.” Grant Ford
