Exhibited since 2010 at Galerie Obadia, Guillaume Bresson is one of the leading figures in the hyperrealist figurative painting movement that has become so fashionable. Now based in New York, the French artist (b. 1982, Toulouse) returns with a virtuoso new series, more theatrical than ever.
Against indeterminate black backdrops, stormy seas or baroque skies, falling bodies emerge. If they weren’t dressed in jeans or jogging suits, and if their choreographed volutes weren’t spangled with sneakers, we might see in them the falls of the damned in Christian paintings “Last Judgments”: Unlike his previous series, set in contemporary settings (underground parking lots, gymnasiums and other deserted suburban locations), this latest one is decontextualised; apart from the T-shirts that have replaced the draperies, the bodies, as if isolated, seem to detach themselves from the timeless backdrops to plunge into the immensity – of heaven or hell. ..
A veritable dramaturgy, these swirls of bodies and drapery play with chiaroscuro, dramatising the contortions of anatomy and the folds of half-removed garments. Painting from photographs, Guillaume Bresson meticulously renders the tension of muscles and the slightest folds of skin in the manner of the old masters. Another technical feat is the rendering of the falling movement of bodies painted in low-angle – floating, swirling bodies evoking the greatest masterpieces of the Renaissance and Classicism (Michelangelo’s “Last Judgment” fresco, Caravaggio’s “Angels and Martyrs” or Nicolas Poussin’s “Massacre of the Innocents” come to mind), but also scenes from apocalyptic films such as “The Day After” (1), “2012” (2)or “The Impossible” (3).
Cutting up his source images to recompose a world oscillating between reality and fiction, verism and onirism, the painter who multiplies references to classical painting (not hesitating here to use the round tondo format so prized in the Renaissance, there to quote a nude study by Théodore Chassériau) is clearly not trying to show off his virtuosity to shine: His paintings are heavy with meaning and, just as his forests and black waves evoked the drama of migrants, they undoubtedly bear witness to the loss of landmarks in our time.
“The Day After Tomorrow”: American disaster film directed by Roland Emmerich, released in 2004.
“2012”: American disaster film co-written and directed by Roland Emmerich, released in 2009.
“The Impossible”: Spanish disaster film directed by Juan Antonio Bayona, released in 2012.
Galerie Nathalie de Obadia
3, rue du Cloître Saint-Merri, Paris IV
natahlieobadia.com
Until January 13th
France – Paris