HE SLEEPS WHERE HE FALLS BY JUSTINE KURLAND at frank elbaz gallery, paris

He sleeps where he falls by Purple contributor Jane Kurland is the result of life on the road, a nine month trip trailing life with nomadic subcultures of America. Spending most of her year away with her van with her six year old son, Kurland traces realist pictorial landscapes where man returns to the earth reconnecting to its tempo. It is the bohemian American frontier, one where Kurland seeks out the mythical identity of the American hobo – simultaneously marginalised and revered. They are the Dean Moriartys’ from Jack Kerouac’s On the Road of today, exiting society to affirm their right to freedom. The utopian expressions of Kurland’s earlier work are questioned with the melancholy of these drifting communities. And one must ask, did they achieve it – the freedom? Perhaps not, Kurland thought. Or perhaps they do, but in moments. These would be fleeting intervals of freedom – and just one of the many expressions of soul in Kurland’s lone wanderers. 

He Sleeps Where He Falls by Justine Kurland is on view until 4 May at Frank Elbaz Gallery, 7 Rue Saint Claude, Paris. 

Photo Olivier Zahm and Text Sophie Pinchetti