PARIS.- NextLevel is presenting The Form that Strength has Left, a solo exhibition by American born artist Chloe Sells.

This is Sells’s first exhibition with the gallery, coinciding with the release of ‘FLAMINGO’, the second monographic publication dedicated to her work. The works in both the exhibition and the publication have been photographed in a part of Botswana that Sells has repeatedly visited over the last three years.

“There is a place on earth that looks like white paint has spilled from the heavens and splashed across its surface. There is no arboreal green. There is no azure water. There is no earthy, brown soil. This albino birthmark is the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans in the heart of the Kalahari Desert of Botswana.“

The horizon line, which scores the center of each photograph is symbolic of what is fixed and determined in life—being born and dying. However, as with human existence, its intransigent confidence dissolves once considered. If one were to chase the horizon they would, at last, reach the place they had begun. Therefore the line is no line at all, but rather part of a circle. The meditative approach created by addressing the landscape again and again allows the viewer to consider experience on many different levels.

Chloe divides her time between her home in Maun, Botswana, where she photographs with a large format camera, and London, England, where she hand processes and prints her work in a darkroom. Each of her artworks is the result of in-depth manipulation and spontaneous experimentation with light during the printing process. Beyond her darkroom interventions, Sells has drawn or painted on some works. Through her mark making she describes the underlying affinity and resonance she feels in the place. The pieces are undeniably painterly and immediate, pushing the boundaries of process within the photographic medium. This new corpus of works reaffirms Chloe Sells’s attachment to territory, in this case the Makgadikgadi Salt