Daneyal Mahmood Gallery is proud to present the New York première of painter Stéphane Pencréac’h.

Pencréac’h’s paintings depict closed spaces, where darkness is pierced by knife-like sh­afts of light; a body floats above murky waters, a car explodes…it seems to suggest an alternate reality. Stéphane Pencréac’h turns perception back on itself - the eyeballs roll backwards into the skull to reveal interior visions both fantastic and real. This coupling gives birth to strange visions, a sort of visual hybridization, where through the juxtaposition of different techniques - paint, pierced canvases, pristine spaces, the inclusion of objects - are multiplied the stratum of reality:  seeing fake and real openings, feigned and true objects, the eye cannot determine if its illusion or reality that make up the surfaces of Pencréac’h’s canvases. Nourished by multiple references, the works mix and combine everything, without apology, at the service of an imagination that appears to have few limits. Ultimately, it is a form of ­theater - in each painting, the curtain is raised onto another act: power, the animal nature of man, sex, death, war, evil, redemption and love. If all this seems familiar, it is because for Pencréac’h, this scary, interior and eminently psychological world is none but our own.

Stephane Pencréac’h’s was born in 1970. He lives and work in Paris. His most recent exhibitions include "Von Katzen und Werwolfen," Postfuhramt, Berlin Germany in the fall of 2008 and "Le Chemin de Peinture,"  at Mamac - Modern and Contemporary Museum of Nice, France December 2008 through May 2009.