CÉSAR PIETTE: ARRAY
© SPURS Gallery, César Piette
SPURS Gallery is honored to announce the César Piette’s first solo exhibition ARRAY, opening at Gallery II on August 1, 2020. This is also the artist's first solo exhibition in the domestic art world, will be on view until August 30.
The paintings of French artist César Piette are memorable for their surrealist cartoon style characterized by smoothness and shininess. The subject matters in his paintings include human figures, animals, objects and landscapes, which consist of a uniform organic matter without exception. A great number of personified postures suggest to the viewers that it might be a perfect yet unreal world of toys. Yet the elaborate depiction of the detail and the flawless expression of three-dimensional images have rendered every image in the painting believable.
Anything could become the center in César Piette’s painting whether it is women, flowers, cats or even trees, mountains or clouds. The background is usually painted with even colors. The trademark eyes covered under pieces of plastic, porcelain-like teeth shown in brimming smile, cheek rouge like stickers and noses that resemble multi-colored clay become the abstract symbols in realistic depictions. In César’s paintings, “space” is simplified as the difference between front and back, between big and small. Or he indicates the existence of space through an exaggerated sense of three-dimension in the subject of the painting that is exploited to the fullest. The commonly seen adorable images on these toys bridge the gap between the artist and his viewers on the one hand, they have managed to work up a psychic distance with an emphasis on inorganic materials on the other.
© SPURS Gallery, César Piette
Before César Piette started his career as an artist, he work in the field of illustrations, video games and comic books for a long time. From there he developed his unique artistic language. Under the guidance of new technology and visual effects, he redefines the representational painting of classical style from primary features such as the monochrome coat of paint, the layering of colors, perspectives, lighting and composition. He uses airbrush as his main tool for his paintings, try to blur the boundaries between the digital and the analogous, erase all brush strokes from the canvas to create confusion for the viewer between the virtual and the physical. In the meantime, by keeping flawed details, he challenges the present and future of painting as a medium with an unparalleled touch that counteracts the tension of the painting.