Invited to take part in the DNSEP jury at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, I discovered a class of excellent calibre, with promising young painters full of energy. Damien Cadio and I decided to present some of them in a short exhibition organized with the support of the Beaux-Arts de Nantes gallery, Maïa Muller. This same exhibition would be extended, in parallel, to a new venue: Chez Jean-Christophe Claude. In this way, ten figurative painters have the opportunity to exhibit a selection of recent paintings, along with a work by each of Damien, the exhibition's two patrons......
The paintings of Liang Fu (born 1993 in Cheng Du, China) move between figuration and abstraction, focusing on the exploration of a symbolic universe populated by elements linked to spirituality, geography, mineralogy, light and sensuality.
Jean Gfeller (b. 1996, Meyrin, Switzerland) paints a portrait of a wobbly, absurd and tragic society with compositions that are both clever and grotesque.
Oscar Lefebvre (b. 1997, Saint Maurice) paints still lifes, fireworks and objects bathed in a green light that is both toxic and familiar, nostalgic.
Margaux Moëllic (b. Poissy, France, 1996)'s fountain-sculptures and world-paintings, inspired by both archaeology and anthropology, reveal places imbued with mythology and magic.
Axel Plantier (b. Lyon, 1996) paints a complex, heterogeneous world in which subjects bathed in warm light cohabit with monstrous or fairy-like organisms.
Berenice Vargas Bravo (b. 1998, Mexico City) works with animals, feminism and colonialism, creating new myths with protean meanings.
Painting from recut photos of bare-chested political figures, Mao Wu (b. 1997, China) explores the relationship between body and power, raising the question of male over-representation and domination in today's world.
Gongmo Zhou (b. 1993, Yueyang, China) uses virtuoso technique to create unsettling images. He is interested in objects, surfaces, screens and the reflections of the world projected onto them.