True Stories brings together Antwan Horfee, Harry Rothel, and Ricardo Passaporte. Horfee draws from Menko cards and early manga, plus the blurry energy of a certain animated Fantasia, layering surreal figures over nostalgic kitsch backgrounds of waterfalls and marine scapes. Rothel directs the human figure with dramatic tension and precise control. His palette moves from vivid blues to delicate mauve and pastel, while his underlying language borrows from old master painting filtered through a modernist's impatience. Passaporte works large with airbrush, pulling from mid-century cartoon tropes: a tumbling Tom & Jerry, a pristine suburban lawn with a bulldog launching forward. His flattened decorative compositions are Arkley-esque in their patterned intensity, but the deadpan humour is closer to post-war absurdism. True Stories is a method: three painters, three ways of making a line cut or hold or haze. Each keeps its own tempo, no dilution. Put them together, classical weight with cartoon timing and airbrush haze, and you get a fantastic crescendo, a sum of parts that lands as collusion and chaotic harmony all at once.
Artis Bios
Harry Rothel (b. 1995, Melbourne) directs the human figure like a stage manager with a dark secret. His macabre, extravagant scenes of joy and horror overlapping unfold in soft, muted colours: vivid blues dropping into delicate mauve and pastel. Rothel's imaginative narratives map the human psyche while skewering social convention and contemporary politics. The result is disquieting but never laboured; his acerbic layers of paint move with a modernist's impatience, borrowing from old masters only to cut their line short.
Ricardo Passaporte (b. Lisbon) paints subjects reflecting his interest in branding, advertising, and consumerism. Passaporte, who first worked as a graffiti artist, gained recognition for his series of Pop art-influenced paintings inspired by the German discount retailer Lidl. He has mounted solo exhibitions in Paris, Madrid, Cologne, and Naples, among other cities. His frequent use of airbrush—a reference to his graffiti background—lends his work a hazy appearance and a sense of dispassionate remove. Passaporte also creates sculptures and installations exploring the aesthetics and ubiquity of corporate branding, from Footlocker to Tesco to the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show..
Antwan Horfee (b. 1983, Paris) builds multiple focal points that lead the eye through layered lines and abstract gestures. His hyperreal yet surreal work references B movies, underground comics, and science fiction, with occasional background elements, blurry waterfalls or portraits of his heroes, that anchor the chaos. Horfee's inspirations run from traditional Japanese woodblock printing, including the landscape perspectives of ukiyo (pictures of a floating world), to the rendering techniques of virtual reality and video games. Surreal characters emerge from Menko cards, early manga, and a certain animated fantasia. A graduate of the Académie des Beaux Arts in Paris, he has shown at the Palais de Tokyo (2024, 2019), the Lyon Biennale (2019), and Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles (2021). His line never stops moving.