Nathalie Obadia is delighted to organise the first solo show at the gallery by Guillaume Bresson (born Toulouse, 1982), an 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 will feature in Dynasty (June-September 2010), an exhibition focusing on the new generation of French artists co-organised by the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.
