Irisation, Chroma, Vibration…, the chromatic palpitations of Diane Benoit du Rey’s canvases hypnotise us. In fact, it was under the title Hypnosis that her large-scale painted fabrics and sandblasted disk were displayed last autumn under the dome of the Espace Richaud in Versailles.
Comprising fifty metres of painted hangings suspended between the coffered dome and the colonnade of the Versailles rotunda, and a large coloured disk made from 400 kilos of pigmented sand, this in situ installation invited visitors to a true pictorial experience. A real immersion in painting and colour gradations. An admirable display of colour in space, this masterpiece on the culmination of abstract work on light begun several years ago.
Born in Versailles in 1989 and trained at the Ecole Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs in Strasbourg, Diane Benoit du Rey’s vocation as a minimalist painter grew out of her observation of how light reveals things (spaces and people). Far from the return of figurative painting and the vogue for hyperrealism, she has devoted herself for years to the representation of luminous phenomena through a fascinating “chromatic exploration”. Like Mark Rothko (currently exhibited in majesty at the Fondation Louis Vuitton 1), or the latest Hans Hartung, from the pulverisation period, Diane Benoit du Rey sees and embraces painting as “luminous matter”, as a source of light.
By superimposing layers to bring out the radiant power of colours from the depths of the background, and to make them move in an infinite number of nuances, the painter brings out the very substance of paint, seeming here to infuse light into the juices of colour, which are soon transmuted into coloured vapours: Everywhere, it vibrates, it moves, it palpitates… Such is the case with the large Coloured Disk installed at Versailles, where the central yellow cloud, like a beating heart, makes all the iridescent vapours surrounding it pulsate in a maelstrom of gradations. A hypnotic work, like the close-up paintings showing the subtle passages from blue to pink, from pink to yellow and from yellow to bluish green… Fascinating chromatic mutations where, among other optical phenomena, we can see phosphenes or retinal persistence, those colours and luminous spots that we perceive with our eyes closed.
©Pierrick Daul / Ville de Versailles
This lumino-chromatic exploration, which goes beyond the flatness of the canvas which, as it moves, seems to be endowed with a third or even fourth dimension, is also carried out in 3D by the artist with her luminous sculptures, called Lumen. A kind of neon sculpture in lacquered glass, these hybrid objects are part painting, part sculpture, designed to “bring painting to light”. Created in collaboration with a glassmaker, a lacquerer and a lighting expert, they were presented at Design Miami last December.
- Jusqu’au 2 avril 2024. Voir Acumen no 39.
- Until April 2, See Acumen #39
Exposition “Inside” – solo show
Galerie Le Feuvre & Roze
164, rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris VIII
From 13 to 27 January
Exposition “Lumen” – solo show
Galerie Scène Ouverte
72, rue Mazarine, Paris VI
@gallery_sceneouverte
en mars
Publication : Hypnose, catalogue de l’exposition éponyme qui s’est tenue du au 3 décembre à l’Espace Richaud à Versailles, éd. Lord Byron