Almine Rech Brussels is pleased to present Full Moon, Ted Pim’s first solo exhibition with the gallery.

Ted Pim once watched a nature documentary where a tree fell in a forest. In the film, he saw the repercussions, how the fauna and flora on the forest floor struggled, climbing over each other in an attempt to get to the light. ‘That is how I see my flower paintings’, he explains: that underneath – or as part of – the beauty of the paintings, is this dark overtone.

Of course, Pim’s paintings are inspired by the old masters. In his studio, printed images of Dutch seventeenth century and Italian Renaissance paintings, among others, are tacked to the walls next to the canvases he is working on. Each painting can have a number of sources, so a floral work could be inspired by a Dutch Golden Age canvas and a dress from a contemporary fashion shoot can end up as the garb of one of Pim’s figures, looking contemporary and Renaissance at once. This mix of high art and mass produced imagery is in keeping with Pim’s work, where references, direct quotations, source imagery, stories and personal associations meet. He builds singular paintings from multiple art historical sources, and the result is a personal vision, where, Pim says, he constructs his own reality.
– Orit Gat, writer and art critic.