MICHEL PEROT
Artist’s statement
“The paintings presented here are void of the human figure as the drama is situated in the landscape itself, shaped by traces of human occupation. These subjects, often disgraced, or already condemned, need, for me, to be painted in their grotesque state. The large format canvases become a means, by rendering the neglible significant, of allowing the antiquated form of landscape painting a contemporary relevance.
Painting maintains the same impact for a fragmentary subject as photography. It’s by the
adopted process that photography, always present in the smallest details of the work, continues to recall something seen. As underlined mainly by their toponymic titles, each work is, if not completely naturalist, at least realistic, and preserves the quality of photography as an objective document.
However, these landscapes are also fantasized and mnemonic. The lighting is not natural, and the colors are sometimes entirely recomposed, in isolated areas or sometimes across the whole painting. A certain freedom, expanded from photography, enables me to develop an autonomous pictorial logic, one that arises from memory, as well as the emotional resonance of melancholy.”
—Michel Perot
Michel Perot (born 1981, Paris) lives and works in Paris. A 2008 graduate of the L’École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Paris, Perot received the “Félicitations du jury,” and will be included in the forthcoming exhibition of 2008 “Félicités” at Beaux-Arts.
LILLIAN DAVIES presents MICHEL PEROT
Opening reception Wednesday, May 6
Show running from May 7 to 17, 2009
Opening hours Tuesday—Sunday, 2—7pm
Press:
ArtSlant