Monday evening saw the opening of SIGNALS, the latest group exhibition at Dubai based gallery Galloire.

The exhibition, Pomet’s first showing in the Middle East, features a group of celebrated international artists, from different continents and from different generations, but who are impacted by the same modern world of branding, commerciality and social programming.

The show, located in Dubai’s ultra-trendy creative lifestyle space City Walk, seeks to explore the following question:

“From our earliest moments of childhood to our dying day, we are bombarded by corporations which try to grab our attention, characters which vie for our affection and voices all around which tell us how we should live our lives.

By the time we reach adulthood, are our decisions and our thinking even our own or are the synapses and signals firing inside our minds wholly conditioned?”

The 3 works by Pomet included in the group exhibition ponder upon this with all of the irony, wit and humour that the Spanish painter is known for. Visitors, both those already familiar with his work and those seeing it for the first time in this new market, will certainly not leave disappointed!

In ‘Superior’ (2021), a cartoon army commander that could be straight out of Francisco Ibáñez’ classic comic ‘El sulfato atómico’ coexists with a group of soldiers in a vintage scene. As the cartoon character energetically barks orders at the tired, weary and reluctant looking troops, the viewer cannot help but be reminded of the pure madness of war. But is this scene in the past, present or future? The masterful blending of styles and references hint that it could be all of these, with human nature proving time and time again that it is unable to learn from its past mistakes. It is incredible that Pomet somehow manages to inject humour into this scenario, and this perhaps does lead to some form of hope.

Pomet has previously stated in an interview with Juxtapoz that he has always thought that “subjects and themes remain the same over centuries, and that human pursuits, aspirations and chimeras are cyclical”, so it is no surprise to see the seamless merging of past and present also appear in the aptly titled ‘Blues’ (2021). At first, the painting looks every part an early 20th Century portrait, albeit washed in a deep blue, until the viewer realises that the figure staring back at them is an aged, melancholic looking Bert from Sesame Street. The absence of Bert’s onscreen counterpart Ernie, who he was never seen without in the children’s television series, is telling, and it becomes clear that he now faces loss and loneliness. Pomet manages to convey the feeling of grief mixed with love in this painting, touching on something that we will all face at some point in our lives.

The artist’s clever use of colour and light portrays great warmth in the large painting ‘Mirage’ (2022). In this superbly realistic image of a desert there is, of course, a twist, as the viewers eye is drawn to the football field markings that appear on the vast, arid landscape. Does this act as a warning and speak on our planets most treacherous terrain being ‘no game’ for naive human pursuit , or does it raise questions around mankind’s constant, incessant need to construct and leave its mark on even the most remote, hostile environments on earth? It is left to the viewer to decide, but either way it seems fitting that this painting should show in Dubai.

The other artists included in the group exhibition are Derek Boshier, Sebastian Maas, Matt Gondek and JPW3.

SIGNALS will be on display until 30th September 2022 - be sure to visit if you can get to Dubai! In the meantime, you can find further information on the Galloire website, and they will be posting photos from the gallery throughout the duration of the exhibition on their Instagram account.

-House of Pomet