Leo Gabin

Leo Gabin uses found images directly from social networks and celebrity blogs to create frenzied abstract paintings. Influenced by street-art aesthetics, the collective elaborates these materials, which often overlap public and private realms. The works also question how collective authorship operates within creative systems and how young people use the media to express themselves. Themes of sex, violence, and fame that dominate this online experience are filtered and interpreted into new narratives. The result evokes mixed feelings of despair, hope and joy, highlighting the need for social change in the post-internet era.

Leo Gabin (Lieven Deconinck, Gaëtan Begerem and Robin De Vooght) has been active as a collective since 2000. They live and work in Ghent and studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in Ghent. Leo Gabin has participated in exhibitions at Marlborough Contemporary in New York, Peres Projects in Berlin, Bruges Center for Contemporary Art and the Atlanta Contemporary Art Center.