Search results for 'Jacques Bodin' at the museum of art

Jacques Bodin, painter, lives and works in Levallois Perret near Paris. He is one of the main representant of european hyperrealism. The paintings, are executed from his own photos modified with numeric tools. His paintings accentuate photographic deviations from reality (depth of field, wide angle, lighting, and focus anomalies) to create a hyperrealism reference. Subject matter includes extreme closeup views of exacting images cast in shadow through reflective lighting. The apparent hyperrealistic frontality of the foregrounds is compared with the diffuse aspect of the backgrounds in which we can see vanishing lines which break up the graphic organization of the canvas. His work explores diverse subject themes such as grass, fruits, hair, trees and vegetation and is organized in the manner in which he captures his subjects and depicts them with meticulous attention. Approaching minimalism, some of the works embark on a conceptual aspect of hyperreality. He has been in numerous gallery shows and his work has been featured in many books. He is represented by Plus One gallery in London. Research of perfection during execution contains itself a message. It is perhaps this passage of time which gives a metaphysical dimension to hyperrealism.
Rivoli Genève
The wander of giving the eye what it can’t see. - The frayed segments that protrude from the wound threads of a ball of string, the luminous transparency of the glass bottle that reflects, deformed, the architecture of the room and the brilliant, compelling colors of the fruit in the basket, the strands of tall, dry grass that decorate the back of a woman like a tattoo… With Jacques Bodin every feature is perfectly visible in a bracing sharpness, from the wrinkled but shiny peel of the oranges to their inner white spongy part, to the pulp of which we see the juice that raises it; from the transparent drops of dew worn by a stem of grass like a jewel, to the veins of ivy enveloping around a lying trunk, to a tuft of grass that the wind combs as if it were hair. The wander lies in giving the eye much more than it can see. As Picasso said, “realism is the impossible”. A mysterious, paradoxical phrase, explained by the literary critic Walter Siti. The world, the reality, is too vast and too complex to be dominated by our gaze. To succeed, the realistic painters divide it into small parts to study them in detail. If we want the precision of the detail, it is impossible to have the whole of the real. Looking at hyper - realistic works of art, many wonder what sense it has to realize them. We all, in fact, have more or less sophisticated technical tools to photograph the world and ourselves. It is a well - founded question.
Nowadays we do not choose a smart-phone for its basic technical property of calling and receiving calls, but for the additional features of taking high resolution photos and video pictures. Snapping photos has become a sort of nervous habit, a tic, a compulsive behavior. Our subjects are barely able to show our special look of the world around us. In a museum, for example, our biggest task is to take pictures of the paintings, installations and sculptures even when it is prohibited. Nevertheless the process of creating art proves to be unpredictable. One of the most exciting questions of contemporary art is to ask oneself if something has been photographed or hand painted. This fascinating doubt is the sign of a challenge between creation and reproduction. Realism is a technique to learn more about the world, not through mere imitation nor through the reproduction of things, but through their analytical remaking by our own hands. Bodin wants to be the soil that makes the grass grow, and the dew that quenches it in the morning. Cristina Muccioli Art critic, curator and lecturer