Portrait of Bambou Gili by Zeph Colombatto
Night Gallery is pleased to announce the representation of the San Francisco-based artist Bambou Gili. This partnership follows the artist’s participation in the Night Gallery group show Shrubs in January 2022. Gili will present her debut solo exhibition at the gallery in the spring of 2023.
Bambou Gili’s paintings are worldbuilding projects, sprawling in narrative and unified by rich, tight color palettes. Throughout her body of work, fantastical landscapes activate the feminine figures inside them, allowing for nature to become an ally, a co-conspirator, a unique character in and of itself. In each series, the artist—whose inspirations range from the animation of Hayao Miyazaki to the French Impressionists—dives into a singular color spectrum to experiment freely and tap into possibility. Oil drippings in green, blue, or purple produce a textural, eerie stillness that moves across tableaux like an omniscient specter. Gili’s surrealistic scenes, imbued with this energy, are both clandestine and playful: lush plants, serene bodies of water, and ethereal trees conceal subjects from one another as their concurrent stories unfold, and each protagonist exudes a presence that matches the magnitude of her surroundings. Within Gili’s alternate universe, environment and human emotion vibrate at an equal frequency somewhere between waking and dreaming.
On Gili’s representation, Night Gallery owner Davida Nemeroff says: “I fell in love with Bambou’s work the first time I saw it, she is such an undeniable talent. Her vivid palette and her ability to tell a nuanced story with each canvas instantly resonated with me. This narrative approach, with gothic and surrealist touches throughout, gives her a truly unique voice that connects with the longer lineage of Night Gallery painters. Bambou will be a wonderful addition to our strong roster of artists."
Bambou Gili (b. 1996, New York, NY) had her debut solo exhibition at Arsenal Contemporary, New York in 2021. Her work has been featured in group shows at Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Jeffrey Deitch, New York; Lyles & King, New York; Galerie Perrotin, New York; WAOW Gallery, Hong Kong; and Asia Art Center, Taipei, among others. Gili has appeared in publications including Elephant, Artnet News, and Artsy. In 2023, she will present her first solo show in Los Angeles at Night Gallery. Gili lives and works in San Francisco.