TAKE TWO
11 May - 20 June 2026

Ori Gersht, Laurent Grasso, Dawn Ng, Erin O'keefe

DE LEÓN is delighted to show the work of four international artists, Ori Gersht, Laurent Grasso, Dawn Ng and Erin O’Keefe. Take Two explores the practice of artists who make a physical work in one medium, such as painting, sculpture or installation and then translate or extend that through the medium of photography and, in the case of Laurent Grasso, film. The resulting images capture moments of transformation, fragility, or rupture, that both surprise and confound.   

Ori Gersht’s work explores the connections between history, memory, beauty and landscape.  Gersht's ‘Amalgamation’ series (2025), from which we will be showing a work, continues his interest in and exploration of art history, specifically the still life tradition, reflecting on the fragility of nature and our perception of time. Gersht has taken the painting, Vase de fleurs dans un niche, by the 17th-century Dutch artist Hendrik Schoock and recreated the arrangement of flowers, as well as the alcove in which they are placed. The work is then shattered by an explosion. The artist photographs the work at the precise moment of its destruction - each image captured at 1/60,000th of a second. This split-second event, invisible to the naked eye, echoes Walter Benjamin’s concept of the ‘optical unconscious’, revealing what lies beyond ordinary perception. Through works like this Gersht explores the tension between tradition and technology, beauty and destruction, and our relationship with nature.

Laurent Grasso’s film Orchid Island (2023) introduces a cinematic dimension to the dialogue between physical reality and its mediated representation. Filmed in black and white, using archive footage from remote sites off the coasts of Taiwan, we observe seemingly pristine and lush landscapes juxtaposed with a futuristic projection.  A mysterious levitating black rectangular form is gradually introduced into the frame, casting its threatening shadow as it moves slowly across the land. This machine-like entity, with illusions to Kazimir Malevich’s painting ‘Black Square’ from 1915, or the monoliths found in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, appears to radiate vaporous particles on to the land beneath. Alien, and supernatural, this enigmatic structure unsettles our perception of time and place and that sense is intensified by the hypnotic musical score of Nicolas Godin. The work powerfully suggests the impact of technology and human intervention on a once pristine natural world.

Dawn Ng, through her frozen pigment sculptures, examines the nature of transformation, temporality and instability, particularly associated with climate change. In her recent series Into Air, from which we are showing two works, she focuses on these topics through the photographic documentation of large frozen blocks of pigmented ice, which she refers to as ‘Clocks’. Each ‘Clock’ consists of up to 33 pigments, made up of watercolours, acrylics and ink dyes, which are built up over the course of months, layer by layer, each representing moments fossilised in time. What has taken months to prepare, melts in just a few hours and is meticulously photographed. Layers melt one by one and at different speeds, releasing their carefully selected pigments which fuse, or flow over each other. What was once a solid form becomes liquid, ultimately leaving its residue - and in that transition momentary traces of beauty are captured on film, like fleeting memories caught in time.

Erin O’Keefe presents images of simple geometric forms rendered in rich, saturated colour. She constructs precise compositions that she photographs to produce perceptually ambiguous images. By removing the glossy surface commonly associated with the printed photographic medium, O’Keefe gives prominence to the painterly texture of her brushstrokes, visible at a closer glance, while controlled lighting creates sharp shadows that destabilise spatial relationships. These carefully staged tableaux and the resulting photographs engage the viewer in a visual puzzle where the camera’s monocular vision compresses space into seemingly impossible configurations.

Together, the works in the exhibition show how photography and film can do more than record the world - they can reshape how we perceive it and make us question our own powers of perception.

Ori Gersht (b. 1967, lives and works in London).
Solo exhibitions include: Amalgamation, Talley Dunn Gallery, Dallas, Texas, USA (2025); Time Travellers, View Masters-Projects, The Netherlands (2025); The Unreality Of Time, Michael Hoppen Gallery, London (2023); Fields and Visions, Tally Dunn Gallery, Texas, USA (2023); Translating The World. Three contemporary perspectives on Walter Benjamin, Bauhaus  Museum, Weimar, Germany (2022); Don't Look Back, Towner Art Gallery, Eastbourne, UK (2015).

Group exhibitions include: Human/Nature: Encountering Ourselves in the Natural World, Fotographista - The Contemporary Museum of Photography Art & Culture, New York, USA (2024); The Shape of Things, Still Life in Britain, Pallant House Gallery, Chichester, UK (2024); All the Whisperings of the World, Fotografihuset, Oslo (2023); Art About Art: Contemporary Photographers look at Old Master Paintings, Princeton University, USA (2023).

Laurent Grasso (b. 1972, lives and works in Paris).
Solo exhibitions include: Laurent Grasso, Metaphysical Maze, MASS MoCA, North Adams, USA (2026); Orchid Island, Perrotin, London; Memories of the Future, Heredium, Daejeon, South Korea; Clouds Theory, Galeria Pedro Cera, Madrid, Spain (2025); Clouds Theory, Abbaye of Jumièges, Jumièges, France; Orchid Island, Perrotin, Tokyo, Japan (2024); Orchid Island, Perrotin, Paris, France; Anima, Perrotin, Seoul, South Korea; Time Leaves, Tao Art, Taipei, Taiwan (2023); Anima, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, France, (2022); Laurent Grasso, Centre Pompidou x West Bund Museum Project, Shanghai, China (2021).

Group exhibitions include: (In)visible Presence, inauguration of the Dib Bangkok, Bangkok, Thailand; Kairos Resounding, 798CUBE Art Museum, Beijing, China (2026); Copistes, Centre Pompidou-Metz and the Louvre Museum, Metz, France; Apocalypse, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, France (2025).

Dawn Ng (b. 1982, lives and works in Singapore).
Solo exhibitions include: The Earth Laughs in Flowers, Singapore Repertory Theatre, Sullivan + Strumpf, Singapore (2026);  Avalanche, Institute of Modern Art, Queensland, Australia, (2024); Dawn Ng, Frieze London solo booth, Kate MacGarry, London (2024); Dawn Ng, Kate MacGarry, London (2023); Into Air, St Cyprian's Church, London;  Sullivan+Strumpf, Sydney, Australia (2022); INTO AIR, Gana Art Nineone, Seoul; Sullivan + Strumpf, Singapore (2021).

Group exhibitions include: Artist’s Proof: Singapore at 60, Artspace Helutrans, Singapore; We Begin with Everything, Ara Contemporary, Jakarta, Indonesia; Free Form, Sullivan & Strumpf, Melbourne, Australia (2025); Children of the Dust, MAYAO Art, Hong Kong; Wild: Women Abstractionists on Nature, Metropolitan Museum of Manila, The Philippines (2024).


Erin O'Keefe (b. 1962, lives and works in New York, USA).
Solo exhibitions include: I saw the man with a telescope, Sargent’s Daughters, New York, USA, (2024); Artists at Home, Pitzhanger Manor & Gallery, London, UK, (2023); Nonfiction, Seventeen, London, UK, (2022); Frieze New York, Solo Presentation Commissioned by Deutsche Bank, New York, USA (2022).

Group exhibitions include: The Pit, Palm Springs, California (2025); Installation at Museo Regionale Scienze Naturali, EXPOSED Torino Foto Festival, Turin, Italy, (2024); Evening of the Day, curated by Ernesto Burgos, Galerie Julien Cadet, Paris, France, (2023); Ways of Seeing Abstraction – Works from the Deutsche Bank Collection, Palais Populaire, Berlin, Germany (2021); AND/ALSO: Photography (mis)representation, Kasmin Gallery, New York, USA (2020).

Thank you to the artists, Laurent Grasso Studio and Perrotin, David Hoyland, and Kate MacGarry.