Ungaro-Pope | Reunion | February 2024

REUNION

the solo exhibition of

HANNAH UNGARO-POPE

February 3, 2024 – February 13, 2024

Among this multitude might I not discover the Primal Plant [Urpflanze]?

There certainly must be one…

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Von Buren Contemporary is delighted to present Reunion, the solo exhibition of upcoming artist Hannah Ungaro-Pope.

Following on from the gallery’s recent group show The Grand Tour, Ungaro-Pope has created a series of drawings inspired by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s theory of the Urpflanze – a plant archetype which the German writer hoped to find on his travels through Italy.

One of the most famous Grand Tourists, Goethe reached Sicily in 1787. Strolling through the botanical gardens of Palermo, he imagined that the extraordinary diversity of the plant kingdom before him originated from a single, primal plant: a universal, ancient plant form that all plants derive from in stem, leaf, and blossom.  Taking this idea as her starting point, Ungaro-Pope has drawn a cycle of works which through close-ups and repetition of dense foliage, suggest the similarities amid the manifold botanical forms that also struck Goethe.

The title Reunion, meanwhile, is a reference to the tropical Indian Ocean island of Réunion, which the artist visited in February 2023 and whose unique biodiversity and scenery also provided inspiration for these drawings.

To complete the exhibition and its focus on the world of nature, Ungaro-Pope unveils for the first time a complementary cycle of small paintings dedicated to the sky and its endlessly shifting aspects. This series Sky is based on a photographic archive of cloud-formations the artist has collected over years, during travels or at home, each image representing an impression and memory of a specific day and place.

The paintings are made using a particular technique the artist has developed for herself, which combines acrylic and very fine layers of oil paint that are applied in a slow, meticulous process, making each Sky painting an exercise in meditation.

Hannah Ungaro-Pope was born in Nairobi in 1987 and is a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the New School in New York. A deft draftswoman, Ungaro-Pope manages to combine strong drawing skills with a carefully researched conceptual approach that nonetheless allows aesthetic concerns to take precedence.