Merav Kamel and Halil Balabin: Bile

 

A hot dog man, a distance thief, and a messianic worm – these are just some of the characters created by the artist duo Merav Kamel (born 1988) and Halil Balabin (born 1987). The large-scale drawings covering the walls look muted and gentle, but a closer look reveals a chaotic, erotic, and violent world. Similarly, their multi-textured figurines are simultaneously delicate, poetic, rude, grotesque, funny, and shocking.

Kamel and Balabin’s microcosm of multi-faceted, multi-limbed beings is personal and mythical, local and universal. Together, the artists form an unreal world that becomes a monumental metaphor for the cycle of life. Alongside a playful, sensual lust for life – degeneration and the awareness of death. A carnival atmosphere that is also mystical and magical. And so creative juices are mixed with bile, injecting what is abject and repulsive with teeming, vital energy.