Caveau des Récollets

Solo exhibition organized by the cultural department of Château-du-Loir town hall,

at the Caveau des Récollets, from May 16 to 25, 2024.

Anima

Mixing styles is a constant feature of Marc Petrusa’s work. From the 90s onwards, this characteristic appears in abstract painting based mainly on repetitive motifs. The idea is to cancel out the motif of representation and composition, and concentrate on the painting itself and the different ways in which it manifests itself. Composition is reduced to simple juxtaposition and motifs to circles. The distance introduced by this repetitive painting plays with the limits of the decorative. This distance is then reflected in seemingly figurative painting. Here, the figure, reduced to types, is a means of bringing different painting regimes into play once again. In the paintings devoted to animals, we can distinguish several approaches. For Cigogne, Mérou, Chameau or Hareng, two distinct supports are used. Each painting has its own coherence, but their juxtaposition produces a strangeness, sometimes seen as humorous or monstrous, even though it is only the result of a process. In Cerf, Marabout, Tigre, Pitbull or Chien Fox, the caesura is strongly marked. It accentuates the difference between the spaces involved. The viewer, invited by the figure to cross this boundary, experiences several atmospheres in the same work. His own place becomes uncertain and unstable. Sometimes (Eagle, Dog Sam, Cowboy or Horsehead) the transition becomes more fluid, and the resulting uncertainty is part of a contemporary questioning of representation and identity.

“In reality, I’m trying to be several people in one painting.

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