GAELLE LOTH
Galerie Bacqueville is delighted to present the first solo gallery show by artist Gaelle Loth, whose work is expressed through drawing, painting, ceramics, installations and publishing.
For the "Trouble with doubles" exhibition, Gaelle Loth presents a recent series of painted portraits distinguished by a singular use of colour. Her pictorial work seems to be a synthesis between the fauvism of a Kees Von Dongen, with its contrasting and derealising chromatic associations, and the minimalist approach to figuration of a Françoise Pétrovitch or a Camille Henrot, expressing herself with very few strokes and leaving large areas of reserve.
"The portraits begin with a vision that pre-exists the gesture. The mental image is a trail that gives way to the material. An attempt to capture an emotion, to synthesise an expression. An imprecise figure appears on the canvas, the line blurred, the confusion in what is projected. The energy of the tones, the curves, the snags, the controlled or unexpected voids, arouses new sensations, transforms the figure represented into a motif, a pretext for pure painting ecstasy. Staring back at the viewer, pairs of eyes meet, silence and time hang together as if in a mirror. The portraits are like suspended doubles," explains the artist.
By framing her work tightly around the shoulders, Gaelle Loth draws our attention to the expressions of her figures, with their massive faces that alternately stare at us or seem immersed in themselves when their gazes are deliberately left opaque or nebulous. These figures, sometimes impassive, sometimes vulnerable, lend a gentle melancholy to the exhibition.
Exhibition runs from 20 October to 18 November 2023.
Opening on Friday 20 October. 6.30pm - 8.30pm.
Artwork : Face, 2021. Acrylic paint on canvas. 110 x 140 cm