FAVORITES:

LAWRENCE VAN HAGEN

The London-based art advisor Lawrence Van Hagen talks about his favorite works in the July selection on Platform.

In their own words

I am an art collector, art curator and an art advisor based in London. I began collecting at a very young age with the help of my mother, who had already been doing so for many years. I curated my first commercial art exhibition in London when I graduated university, and it was a total success. The idea was to showcase the artists that I love, from very emerging to very blue chip, mirroring what I buy for my own collection. Since then, I have curated over 10 exhibitions in Hong Kong, London, New York, Seoul and Venice, following the same principle of mixing artists from all backgrounds and price ranges, be it a Gerhard Richter or a Jenny Morgan. I am also an advisor to the international board of Palais de Tokyo in Paris, one of the most important and avant-garde art centres in Europe.

Tom Anholt, Artist Table 1
Oil on canvas, 11.8 × 15.8 inches, 2022. $10,000

Tom Anholt is an artist I also collect and over time I have placed some of his works in my clients' collections. The scenery in his paintings is both exotic and mundane, I love the juxtaposition! His works retain a very surreal quality while depicting the everyday life. The landscapes are half way dreamy and nightmarish, with direct quotations from art history, which, however, are completely tight into his peculiar cosmos. Browse the work.

Jenny Morgan, Flame Study (first image above) and The Interlude (second image above)
Flame Study: Oil on canvas, 18.0 × 14.0 inches, 2022. $8000. The Interlude: Oil on canvas, 16.0 × 12.0 inches, 2022. $7000

I love Jenny Morgan's work, she is an amazing young artist from Utah experimenting with psychological visual realism. Obscuring the physical to expose the spiritual, she creates her haunting portraits that are as corporeal as they are ethereal. I discovered her work a few months ago, and I am obsessed with it. I have one of her portraits in my collection and I included one of her works in my last exhibition Corpo e Mente in Venice, the work was placed immediately in one of my top clients' collection and I have had numerous requests since the opening. Browse the works.

Emily Furr, Missile Drop
Oil and acrylic on board, wood frame, 11.0 × 11.0 inches, 2022. $5500

I have just discovered the work of Emily Furr and I find it very interesting! She blurs the lines between the natural world and the industrial one, juxtaposing elements such as stars with machinery. I find her work as charming as disconcerting, confronting our human impetus to impose our own order over nature's flow. Browse the work.