Thomas de Marsay
Interpretive Realms
January 8 - January 29, 2010
Reception:
Thursday January 14, 2010 6-8 PM
Press Release
Barcelona-based Andalusian painter Thomas de Marsay textures his careful, small-scale oil paintings with delicate brushstrokes that give his references to pop culture and art history an affecting intimacy. Allusions to Van Eyck, Velazquez, Francis Bacon, Cézanne and others turn moments from Hollywood cinema and comic books into fascinating and quizzical scenes that tease our curiosity and taste for narrative. Intentionally and playfully, de Marsay never gives us all the pieces of the puzzle, reveling instead in the tension between tableaux and storytelling.
These quotes and tributes never give the composition the ironic edge of pop art, but instead are adapted into scenes that feel genuine, loaded and eerily organic. De Marsay manages to portray his iconic characters—superheroes, 50’s celebrities, famous movie characters—with empathy and gravity. Suddenly, these figures from other familiar stories become actors in new dramas, unknown theatrics and we’re candidly glimpsing in media res. Timeless, yet undeniably contemporary, conscious of history, yet defiantly new, de Marsay’s paintings offer uncanny novel discoveries.
Artist Statement
I have always been drawn to art from a young age. Growing up in a small village in Andalucia, I developed strong powers of observation early on. I turned to painting as my form of expression the first time I fell in love, and since then it has played a role in many of the significant moments of my life. I have gone through many different stages in my artistic development. At the moment I am working in two directions: the first, the most personal, being compositions of interiors with figures; the second is based on old photographs, particularly those of the 1950s. The uniting theme in all my work is a sense of honesty. Like Picasso, I paint what I would want to buy.
Invitation to the exhibition
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Artists in this exhibition
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