THE ADVENTURER, Fortnight Institute, New York, 2020

Amoral Tales 2020 oil on canvas 8x6,5cm

Soft Preys 2020 oil on canvas 9x6,5cm

Fake Witness 2020 oil on canvas 8,5x6,5cm

Random Rumble 2020 oil on canvas 7x8cm

Vertical Hunt 2020 oil on canvas 10x8cm

Follower 2020 oil on canvas 12x8cm

Lounge; Bad Nonchalance 2020 oil on canvas 7x8cm

The Last Lure 1 2020 oil on canvas 8x7,5cm

The Last Lure 2 2020 oil on canvas 5x5,5cm

PRESS RELEASE

Adventurer, a solo exhibition of twelve miniature paintings by French artist Sophie Varin.

"While exploring ideas around the gaze, curiosity, and witnessing, I ended up thinking about situations where one can look without being seen. One way to do this is by attempting to merge or dissolve into your surroundings. These ideas led me to think about mimicry. What I find compelling in mimicry and camouflage is the ambivalence as you disguise for both attack and defense. Thinking about a relationship to the world in those terms implies a negotiation with the real that is driven by an imaginary of both the hunt and the hunted."

In this new series of oil paintings, an adventurous figure wanders vibrantly colored landscapes saturated in malachite greens, subsuming blues and intoxicating reds. Varin's paintings might be small but her worlds are not limited to the confines of the canvas. The paint wraps and bleeds around the edges of the canvases as its character inhabits immense spaces as both the hunter and the hunted. In the paintings, The Last Lure 1 and 2, Varin's adventurer glows like an apparition in a gossamer-like veil of greens and blues, fading and disguising into the cloak of nature. The circumstances in which this character finds itself is inspired by the last sentences of La Tentation de Saint Antoine by Gustave Flaubert, where he wishes to disappear or become the nature that engulfs him. He believes this transformation will save him from the temptation of all kinds of desires. A dreamlike radiance permeates throughout the paintings with the energy of subtle uncertainty and eeriness. It is not definitive, there are no answers, it's a feeling. These landscapes are not what they seem. A painting that can fit in the palm of your hand feels like an extension of your body, you merge and dissolve, if only for a moment.

Dazzled and Deceived 2020 oil on canvas 6,5x6cm