Human Exhibition Vol. 1

Human Exhibition Vol. 1 at Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art presents a collective meditation on identity, perception, and the constructed nature of portraiture. Curated by Gavin Coates, this group exhibition brings together artists who interrogate what it means to represent the human form in an age of fragmentation and multiplicity. Rather than offering fixed likenesses, the works assembled here propose identity as process—layered, partial, and perpetually unfolding.

Arnaud Quercy contributes A Woman – Variation 1, a watercolor work that exemplifies the exhibition's central concerns. Rendered in muted earth tones punctuated by primary geometry, the piece presents a figure who emerges from interlocking forms rather than being captured by them. The face hovers between revelation and concealment, suggesting that portraiture might be less about documentation than evocation—less a record of appearance than a tracing of presence.

Quercy's approach to the human image draws from what he terms "inner architecture"—the intersection of memory, place, and perception that shapes how we see and are seen. Painted in Paris's Butte-aux-Cailles neighborhood, A Woman – Variation 1 carries the urban intimacy of that locale while speaking to universal questions of identity construction. The woman depicted is not singular but archetypal, her form composed through the artist's characteristic vocabulary of curves, fine lines, and chromatic tension.

Within the broader context of Human Exhibition Vol. 1, Quercy's work anchors a conversation about abstraction as a mode of truth-telling. Where photographic portraiture promises fidelity, these assembled works propose something different: the acknowledgment that to represent a person is always to interpret, to layer one's own perception over the irreducible complexity of another consciousness. The exhibition invites viewers to consider not just who is depicted, but how seeing itself constructs its subjects.

Artist Statement

In A Woman – Variation 1, I sought not to depict a person but to evoke the architecture of presence. The figure emerges from geometry and gesture, her identity assembled rather than captured. She is painted in Butte-aux-Cailles, where the narrow streets and layered histories of Paris inform every mark—yet she belongs to no single place or time.

The watercolor medium allows for transparency and accumulation, each wash building upon the last like memory itself. I am drawn to the threshold between recognition and abstraction, where a portrait ceases to document and begins to resonate. The woman in this work is not one but many: every woman who has been seen, constructed, and reimagined through another's gaze.

Logistics

The exhibition ran from September 1 through December 1, 2023, at Naturalist Gallery of Contemporary Art in Washington, DC. Curated by Gavin Coates. For inquiries regarding exhibited works, contact the gallery directly or visit the online viewing room at

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Not_For_Sale

A Woman - Variation 1

Arnaud Quercy, 2023

Watercolor on Paper

21.0×30.0 cm

A Woman - Variation 1 Watercolor on Paper Arnaud Quercy Creations / AQC0473 / 2023 Certificate of authenticity N° 202312...