Jean-Marc Bustamante 12 Peintures
Xavier Hufkens is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Jean-Marc Bustamante. For his third solo exhibition at the gallery, Bustamante will exhibit 12 Peintures, 12 new works in Bustamante’s ongoing series of Panoramas.
The new Panoramas all have the same vertical format of 195 x 147 cm and are based on drawings the artist has made during the Summer of 2006. After the monumental paintings the artist created for the exhibition Beautifuldays at the Kunsthaus in Bregenz in January 2006, Jean-Marc Bustamante continued his research for a new painting that takes into account the crossovers from drawing to sculpture, while incorporating photography: the matrix of the artist’s oeuvre.
Over time, these inks on plexiglas have gained a high level of complexity. The relationship of the ink, the transparency, and the plexiglas which reveals the wall and transforms it into the background of the work, allows the artist to make the shadow and the light interdependent to each other, while preserving the high intensity of the colours. As the sheets of plexiglas are suspended two inches from the wall via metal brackets, they allow the viewer to see both the array of lines screened onto the surface and the shadows those lines cast on the wall behind. The brilliance of the work itself reflects the surrounding space and the viewer.
The abstract drawings - mental projections - are first rendered on millimetre paper by the artist. After being reworked on the computer, they are transferred, or rather cooled down and fossilized into the plexiglas via silkscreen. Their enlargement along the process makes them more effective in terms of visual power. This reduction or apparent simplification brings the essence of the gesture and the imagination of the artist to the surface. The prevalence given to large, coloured, flat surfaces restores their vivacity, their freshness and gives painting a new future.
A catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition 12 Peintures including an essay by the French critic Eric de Chassey.
Jean-Marc Bustamante (°1952, Toulouse) lives and works in Paris. Over the past twenty years, he has established an international reputation with numerous major exhibitions at institutions including Kunsthalle Bern, Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg, Stedelijk Museum in Eindhoven, Kunstmuseum Luzern, and the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg. Jean-Marc Bustamante has also been included in Documenta VII in 1987, Documenta IX in 1992 and Documenta X in 1997. He drew attention in particular with his contribution to the French pavilion at the Venice Biennial in 2003 and with the major solo show Beautifuldays at the Kunsthaus Bregenz, Austria in 2006
