Neo-japonism

 

Marc Renard has started on a completely new trajectory in his career as an artist.

 

In much the same way that Van Gogh or Monet was influenced by 'japonism', his inspiration for the infinite elegance read about in The Tale of Genji (the most important work of Japanese literature written during the XIth century) as well as seen in the traditional erotic prints, does not only depend on a passive inheritance of an ancestral aesthetic influence but also generates an active as well as subjective creation.

 

Remaining faithful to his artistic originality and innovation, Marc Renard freely  translates the spirit of the ancestral Japanese codes into his new works.

 

Using a synthetic, semi-transparent canvas, stretched tight to add depth and employing - amongst other techniques - micro-perforated adhesive strips, he creates an exciting sense of 'opaque voyeurism'.

 

Marc Renard synthesises the bodies, the hairstyles, the fineries as described in the aforementioned Genji Tale and seen in the erotic prints, and conceives a mere hint, a shadow, a passing movement, a perspective, a ground-breaking framework.

 

His lyrical picturesque gestures, sometimes scraped either with a brush or compressor,  maintain a masterful dialogue with the geometric spaces made up of tense and energetic lines, straight and curved or circles - bringing to mind yet again the culture of the 'Land of the Rising Sun'.

 

 

Suzanne Easton

Exhibition Curator

May 2018

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