The exhibition will include four large-scale paintings and a selection of smaller works. The pieces in this presentation are all titled Fournez, named for the local pronunciation of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano on Réunion Island, where the artist was raised from age two to 14. For these works, which are part of a series the artist has been producing for the last six years, Guilbert uses variously colored oil sticks on wood to create layered, gestural marks, imbuing each semi-abstract rendering of the volcano with different moods and resonances.

The works in Guilbert’s upcoming exhibition with Pace were created specifically for the show. Dark paintings figure in the beginning of the exhibition, with the hues of the works on view becoming increasingly light later in the presentation. This enactment of darkness giving way to light reflects the artist’s past walks to the Piton de la Fournaise volcano, which were begun at night and concluded at daybreak.

Guilbert’s practice spans painting, drawing, and music, and the works in his solo exhibition with Pace in Palo Alto reflect his interest in recurring visual motifs that produce rhythmic, melodic effects. The artist’s practice is often engaged with his personal and lived experiences, with his Creole roots and childhood on Réunion Island among the inspirations for his paintings and musical compositions, which incorporate vocals and guitar. At the center of much of Guilbert’s work in abstraction is an ineffable, nostalgic quality that defies any fixed narrative.

“The volcano is part of an unconscious, a space I lived and grew up in,” Guilbert has said of his Fournez paintings, which figured in the 2021 group exhibition Silence at Pace’s gallery in Geneva. “The subject represented is an eruption, a projection, a sensation projected to the surface of every painting. Every work of art is the projection of an affect and of an idea.”

This exhibition marks the final presentation at Pace’s Palo Alto gallery as we will be consolidating our operations on the West Coast from our gallery in Los Angeles. Since opening our space in Palo Alto in 2016, Pace has staged meaningful programming from landmark experiential shows with teamLab and James Turrell to historical presentations of Louise Nevelson, Agnes Martin, and Pablo Picasso. The engagement of Palo Alto’s technology industry has had a huge and lasting impact on Pace Gallery at a global level.