Contemporary Art Exhibition > Guillaume Bresson (b. 1982)
Contemporary Art Exhibition > Paris > Nathalie Obadia Gallery
Guillaume Bresson
Nathalie Obadia Gallery, Paris
Through 17 July 2010
Guillaume Bresson (born Toulouse, 1982) is a french artist who graduated in 2007 from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he lives and works.
Bresson uses a technique that strongly recalls classical painting in meticulous compositions which depict modern scenes of urban violence in the manner of historical scenes. He thus draws on mythological tropes and the tradition of history painting (from Poussin to Caravaggio) to convey a reality that is resolutely contemporary in its style and in its references to such realities as urban rioting and street fighting. His paintings are made using photographs that are carefully posed and worked out with models and actors. They turn these modern youngsters into mythological heroes, with the colours and brands of their trainers and sneakers becoming the heraldic insignia of the clans they represent.
The realism and detail of these figures, combined with the deliberately composed setting, work to create a convincing if not realistic fiction articulated around complex compositional structures. In this strongly contrasting environment almost limited to two simple tones, silhouettes emerge from darkness and their bodies perform a choreography that takes shape in the middle of car parks, basements and housing projects.
Guillaume Bresson is also on view in Dynasty, an exhibition focusing on the new generation of French artists co-organised by the Palais de Tokyo and the Modern Art Museum of Paris city–Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
Nathalie Obadia Gallery
3, rue du Cloître Saint-Merri
75004 Paris
France
29 May - 17 July 2010
