Inner Landscapes | MARION TIVITAL in Brussels
French artist Marion Tivital presents her paintings in Belgium for the first time. She paints the „remains“ of industrial development in landscapes, all the factories, warehouses, silos that literally „took place“ in the surroundings and became part of landscapes such as huts and fences, fields and pathways. In Tivital’s works, painted in a reduced style with minimalistic forms and muted colours, these structures develop an intriguing, almost meditative quality – a reference to her introspective approach. To find out more about Tivital’s work also see this deconarch.com interview.
(c) Marion Tivital
MARION TIVITAL
Inner Landscapes
February 12 – March 25, 2015
Pascal Polar gallery, Brussels
PR Info _ Marion Tivital exhibits for the first time in Brussels at the Pascal Polar gallery. Her paintings will delight fans of unusual “still-lifes”. Her work can be compared to such artists as Michael Borremans, Hans Op de Beeck or Hiroshi Sugimoto. A wide selection of large format works will be exhibited accompanied by several pretty little oils on wood and cardboard.
« I really admire Morandi along the great masters like Vermeer. I admire everything about him, his simplicity, his asceticism, his relentless work and the depth of it, as well as his inner quest and the spirituality he gives to it. The power of his drawing skills are an example for me. The sobriety and the poetry of his work touch me deeply. He really is a master, a lover of light and inner landscapes.
Why industrial landscapes in particular? What I love about lanscapes in general is to paint the light coat of light that dresses volumes and I found the light on warehouses, on silos, or the geometric masses of a factory very beautiful. I am often told, that man is absent from my paintings, however I am still not showing the virgin nature but things man thought of, made, used. In the case of plants, they are places where the man works or has worked. So I found that the industrial sites were carrying more than empty landscapes.
Diving boards, gas stations or caravans: their pseudo insignificance and plasticity of their forms attired my attention. I want to study the relationship between these geometric shapes and their environment, the slow and inexorable integration of these masses into the landscape. I search for a beauty where nobody expects to find it. I hear about Hopper quite a lot, but I don’t especially feel close to him. His compositions are perfect and very effective, but I think his figures are anecdotal. And I really don’t want to go there, on the contrary. To me, Hopper is more the painter of loneliness than silence.
I want to capture the essence of my subject, I’m working in simplifying. This leaves room for interpretation. Not only mine, but also that of the person looking on the painting. I avoid the anecdotal and the unnecessary. For me, this simplification is one of the ways that allow me to transcribe accurately what I see. I try to put myself in a state of uncertainty, to clear my head, to absorb these sensations happening.
Regarding the timeless side of some of my landscapes, what fascinates me is that we tend to consider them just like a decor. We don’t look at them, we pass them as we walk down the road, as we drive a car, and we forget them completely. In fact, we are the decor. I’m not interested in what will happen to my paintings in a hundred years from now; I won’t be there to see it. But to all that is there, the electric poles, the water tanks, the factories and the nuclear plants, I want to give another place than that of insignificant decor. Because they are presences that will outlive us like witnesses of a past. » (Extract from the interview with Marion Tivital by Jean Daniel Mohier on March 13th, 2013)
Info + illus. courtesy Pascal Polar gallery
