Lebanon - Art & Culture - French Artists On Display
Nishee
Scenes of tranquil intimacy
Helen Khal takes a look at the work of painter Antoine Vincent and
others
Antoine Vincent is a French painter who once aspired to be a
professional operatic tenor baritone. Fifteen years ago, when he
realized the limitations of his voice, he gave up that ambition and took
up the brush instead. I have not heard Vincent sing, but from looking
at his paintings now on exhibit at Galerie Alice Mogabgab, I would say
that in making the switch, he didn’t shortchange himself. And the
world, in turn, has gained a fine painter.
Vincent follows the traditional principles of figurative art. He paints
in oils on canvas, tends to apply the golden mean in composition and
foregoes the tricky techniques of modern mixed media. He portrays the
human figure and the world around it with an exacting eye, rendering its
components of reality without any distortion, stylization or ambiguity.
Out of the ordinary daily images that fill his vision, he composes
vignettes of tranquil intimacy nudes posing or caught unaware after a
bath, the clutter of an artist’s studio, children playing or in repose,
or a woman napping on a sofa.
In the soft touch of his brush, in the lyric passages of light that
bathe these vignettes, however, Vincent enters into personal dialogue
with himself and with us. And we perceive his compassionate regard for
life. We perceive this not so much in the image itself, but more
powerfully through the abstract linguistics of color, line and form he
employs and upon which the aesthetic validity of all art depends.
With mathematical precision, Vincent builds up a geometric structure of
forms that create a beautifully balanced composition of emotive content.
Our eye moves with ease and pleasure along the quiet play of light and
shadow that engulfs the picture, leading us vertically, horizontally
and diagonally across the surface to enter its quiet depths.
Vincent’s warm, subdued grays, sparked into resonance by isolated notes
of vibrant color, create a lingering mood of introspective solitude.
Though tinged with yearning for a lost past, all is peaceful and serene.
l The work of another French painter, Jean-Gilles Badaire, now showing
at the Fadi Mogabgab gallery, looks at life through the diametrically
opposed lens of darkness and despair. Other than two paintings
distinguished by patches of somber red, his color palette is made up
primarily of brooding black and its grayed tonalities. His images are of
ordinary objects a cane, a teapot, a sieve, a vase or a fish that
appear to hold no inspirational significance other than to serve as a
pretext upon which to hang his blacks.
Working in mixed media, Badaire employs a “soaking” technique first
introduced by the American abstract expressionist, Helen Frankenthaler.
This method of painting involves pouring or spattering liquid pigment on
the raw canvas and letting it fall as it will. When using a range of
bright color, as Frankenthaler did, these accidental splotches and waves
of paint can produce some exciting pictures, but in black they result in
a flat, dull, funereal surface.
This, however, may be exactly the quality of expression Badaire wants.
He is obviously a man deeply troubled by the murmurings of evil plaguing
human existence. In looking at the paintings, I wondered about the
purpose of art in nurturing and uplifting the spirit. Do we need art to
remind us of evil? Wouldn’t it be better to feed our spirits with the
remembrance and promise of joy? Matisse, for one, thought so.
l The French Cultural Center is showing the work of a young artist, Sara
Badr, in her first solo exhibition. It is entitled “Invisible Circle”
and in it she asks: “Who am I? Where am I going?” To answer these
questions she turns to the conceptual in art and presents us with a
combination of images and words expressed through a series of large
diptych paintings and an installation.
The paintings are all of women presumably self-portraits roughly
brushed on canvas with a minimum of color interest and rather
non-committal in expression. In each diptych, however, Badr has
installed a peep hole through which the spectator can see and read the
artist’s private observations on the meaning of life.
One of them, for example, tells us: “In and out, a hazard, then a
desire, a movement, an arrest.” Another says: “A timidity? Not at
all! A discretion, or better still, a distinction.”
The installation is a small room, which one enters to find a four-piece
composite painting of a crouched nude woman hanging on one wall. Another
wall contains this statement on the universe, printed in reverse and
reflected to be read on the opposite mirrored wall:
The universe is a box that contains the earth, which is a box that
contains the house, which is a box that contains the human, which is a
box that contains the soul, which is a box that contains the universe.
This one I understood and liked.
l Lebanon continues to export its art. Currently exhibiting this month
at the Millesgarden Museum in Stockholm are two of our young artists,
the painter Greta Naufal and the sculptor and ceramist Samar Mogharbel.
They were selected to represent Lebanon by the museum’s curator, Steffan
Carlen, who made a special trip to Beirut months ago specifically for
that purpose. The exhibition will run until March 7.
l Vincent at Galerie Alice Mogabgab, Sofil, Achrafieh, until Feb. 27.
Tel: (01) 336525.
l Badaire at Fadi Mogabgab, Horsh Tabet, Blvd. Pres. Helou, until March
2. Tel: (01) 500902.
l Badr at French Cultural Center, Rue Damas, until Feb. 26. Tel: (01)
615859.