Harmonic rendez-vous in Southern France

From October through December I participated in an amazing and lovingly planned exhibition: “L'Harmonie ou Le Milieu Des Mondes” a group show organized by Hey! modern art & pop culture, unique multidisciplinary project led by Anne Richard from Paris.

The exhibition is housed in a magnificent convent turned cultural center, the Carmel in the city of Pamiers, close to Toulouse. I attended the inauguration and here share some chosen moments. I cannot do justice to the beautiful people I met there, both my dear & dearest Anne and Zoe from Hey! Who provided unfettering good cheer and professionalism, as well as the team in the Carmel itself, who all collaborated in making me feel at home. The space accomplished a seamless discours in presenting contemporary work within an imposing historic environment, I was myself represented by 8 carefully chosen paintings from different periods, besides one made expressly for the exhibition.

The Hey! team and various artists at the Carmel, below photos from the vernissage.

Photos courtesy of Hey!©️Zoé Forget

-Hey! website and Instagram plus a link to a brief clip of me talking-

www.heyheyhey.fr

@heyheyheyteam

https://www.heyheyhey.fr/fr/video-detail/119172-gabriel-grun-allegorie-du-trou-noir-english-version

Gorgeous red-headed monkey-girl in ecstatic contemplation of birdie

Explorer - 162 x 100 cm. Oil on canvas - 2024

In this painting I wanted to repeat a formula, that of my 2013 ‘Imaginary Painting of Mary-Sabine’. That was literally my intention., still I wanted the same ingredients, but a new soup. So there you have the full figure, classic pose, overarching horizon, expanding landscape, the profusion of objects, the trick with the skin.. but the result was incredibly different, which surprised me, I wanted a reliable masterpiece, and got a mottled half-breed ragamuffin, full of character and absolutely non-classical instead. I wouldn’t say it’s in complete opposition to Mary-Sabine, but surely of an incompatible nature. I was foiled, but in retrospect I should have known better. After all, how many painters attempt, say, a Virgin with Child, same daytime composition, same elements, even same pulverised lapizlazuli in the robe, and get unfailingly a new specimen each time.

So here we have a ‘naturalists’ dream (or maybe more of a feverish vision after a heat strike). We see a monkey-lady that holds captured birds and examines their eggs with a classifier’s intent, at least judging by the notes and paraphernalia scattered at her feet. The scientist is herself worthy of examination, as, even if carrying the tools of the trade with her, she nonetheless wanders the land naked, covered only by tufts of amber fur.

I realise I’ve been just describing the piece, rather than giving any hints as to the reasons behind it. I have to admit sometimes in creating a new work, and this is a case in point, I knowingly allow myself to be carried onwards by a capricious idea, trusting at the end of the turmoil to find the reasons underpinning it all to be apparent and somehow already set under the chaos. Some results are more unexpected than others, more so when I begin with such boring rules as I did in this occasion. The result is here, unavoidable, the adventure begins!

Some pics of the process for those die-hard fans

Thorny repetition

La Somptueuse Dame Cactus - 195 x 90 cm. Oil on canvas. 2024.

This version of a previous painting came as a `suggestion` from a dear friend of mine, curator Anne Richard, who really missed not having the 2023  ‘metamorfosis en Cactus’ in an upcoming group show. In the meantime it had sold. I took it as an opportunity to follow up on ideas I had toyed with when working on the original piece, and even used the same round frame to extend it at the lower end and develop the entire ‘body’ of the figure, actually trapped inside a tall vase that, according to my intentions, should from afar resemble a conic dress. This painting ended up being much darker, the figure more active, giving an overall dimension and narrative I couldn’t have predicted.

When opening up a scene the resulting composition alters the narrative in which the figures attain their pictorial meaning. That’s why a small change in composition makes a painting memorable without it being technically obvious at first glance. All the space I had to develop the floor, keeping in mind the Dutch lesson, helped render a less placid, heavier, more grounded figure, she’s meaner, somehow.

It was actually harder to paint most of the repeated motives for this one. I couldn’t go back to the innocent discovery attitude I had the first time around, I had, in a way, no excuse for any shortcomings, the sketch was the first painting. I’m usually curious about the exact nature of the variations you find in old master’s takes on ‘small’ and ‘big’ retelling of the same motive, Brueghel, Bosch.. and this was interesting, I wouldn’t have reached some of the effects done here if not prompted by the situation, while at the same time being unable to carry on fully all that made up the older painting. Some aspects remained unrepeatable.

Whish

Wishing Breeze - 80 x 80 cm. Oil on canvas. 2024

This is a work that wanted to be very decorative, sweet to the eye. The final result is a bit harsher than I had imagined, goes to show one never has any measure of control over the final feel of a painting.

The idea falls in the category of many `plant ladies` I’ve done and will hopefully continue to do. The mixing of taxonomic categories, really natural kingdoms in this instance, exerts a perennial fascination over me, and I don’t tire of exploring the visual possibilities of such hybridisation, and the symbolic tendrils it shoots towards myth and fable. 

The setup is indebted to religious imagery, particularly a Christ with thorns I saw in Toledo Cathedral, where the origin of the red stone frame resides.

 

I’ve added some pictures of the work in progress, here you can see the geometry holding the composition together and the successive stages, my approach to this painting was a bit Tetris-like, finishing separated zones in turns and getting a full idea only after the puzzle was done. 

Festina Lente

Dream March -  130 x 100 cm. Oil on wooden panel. 2023

Take your time when in a hurry, that came to mind as me and my family commenced the long haul that moving from Spain back to my natal Buenos Aires would entail. These were the months during which the plan took shape and the reality of moving, yet again, a whole house and two studios, bore its weight on us.

The story behind this painting is retold in a long, and painful to paint, inscription on its base. To me the chronology read as follows: I did a small sketch about a snail figure carrying an structure, my wife referred a dream she had about a very similar scene, from which came the big pigeon and the house; later my daughter, 13 at the time, told of an analogous dream she had had, further sustaining the image as it formed. I couldn’t find any movie or reference we had been exposed to together, so I concluded I just had to exorcise the motive out of our collective minds.

I read the action from left to right, so this motion would seem a retreat, at first. The house in the shell is full of medievalesque notices and posters, a collection of memories, personal symbols and associative indexes pertinent to our life as a family. The feeling I aimed for was that of a biblical endeavour, the slowness and effort of changing that which surrounds you and makes part of you. I’m absolutely oblivious as to why the figures are smiling, that was not expected.

Stylistically I stretched a bit the grotesque here, but the scene demanded it, the idea just couldn’t be conveyed if watered down, I am unapologetically glad to have found an excuse to try this peculiar aesthetic. 

Really hope they find their way.

 

Can`t teach an old dog new tricks

Las Grebas Doradas - 100 x 100 cm. óleo sobre chapa de acero - 2023

This is an unusual painting, in that its theme came unasked for, piggybacking on the image. I was sure of the old wasted man atop the fresh young centaur lady as though it was a given. The important details were there from the start: the partial armour, the old gold, tainted but precious, the weary look and attitude, the  springy dame and her dreams of youth, the boisterous promises of beauty and life.. the odd relationship, above all.

I chose to leave the beautiful texture of a pair of steel plates that had begun to rust in the background, enjoying the interplay between the tree branches and the brown stains. Also the metallic shimmer adds to an uncanny effect that I welcome. Here below I share two sketches, where it is plain the idea changed little. Preponderant was the role of the bridles, the forceful way they permitted to control the young maiden, I’m not sure why, but that was crucial.

Dama espinosa aún esconde dulzuras

El formato del tondo es siempre una imposición, un obstáculo con demasiados sectores que fuerzan compositivamente la obra. El borde arrastra, coloca los elementos con una lógica implacable. Esta pintura nació en mi mente emparentada con otra, anterior, la Metamorfosis de Queso Gruyere, que sin embargo respira otra atmósfera. Esta dama cactus comunica con su epidermis tanto la aspereza, la distancia, como la capacidad generativa de su renovado florecimiento. Algunos elementos en principio accesorios, como la pequeña fauna que habita entorno a ella, terminaron asumiendo mayor protagonismo, quizás por fuerza de la composición misma, como si tuvieran una significación mas definida de la prevista. El detalle para mí importante es el del frasco con pigmento carmín derivado de la cochinilla mexicana (Dactylopius Coccus), de histórico uso, demostrado aquí encarnado en el uso real del pigmento en todo el fondo, -matizado con minio de mercurio- que muestra la belleza de la hembra del pobre insecto, retratado fijado en algunos trozos de cactus en el primer plano, también.

Metamorfosis en Cactus - 90 cm. diam. óleo sobre tela - 2023

Alegoría del Círculo Cromático

Se trata de un cuadro sobre la búsqueda obsesiva y fatalmente imposible de dominar el fenómeno del color, por parte de artistas que históricamente solían pisar  el terreno de la ciencia sin credenciales. Se encuentran citas a diversos círculos y teorías cromáticas, y al fondo un pequeño autorretrato como otro artista más, enfrascado en ese frustrado intento. El arcoíris es finalmente un llamado a la óptica natural, de la que todo deriva en última instancia. Detrás está el inevitable homenaje a Florencia y al año y medio que pasé ahí. Hay un contraste entre la paleta principalmente ocre y de un verde ácido del fondo y los colores pretendidamente prismáticos y saturados de la figura. Vale la pena mencionar la geometria inherente a la proyección de las graduaciones de color sobre la figura irregular de la alegoría. 

unas muestras del tipo de bocetos que preparo para algunos cuadros, donde se puede ver el camino de tanteo que a veces acompaña el proceso de creación, para llegar a la imagen final. Además el verdaccio con el que empecé la pintura, importante en este caso para influir en el tono general, durante todo el proceso gradual de definir los campos pictóricos.