Philippe Pasqua: Paradise

Description

Self-taught, Philippe Pasqua ("Grasse, 1965") is involved in the current renewal of figurative art. Through his monumental canvases, large in format and loaded with paint, he depicts the human figure with the frankness of realism and the intensity of expressionism, exposing the body in all its states, showing the palpitating flesh to draw out its fascinating beauty. He works with series of portraits around particular themes: anaesthetized patients during surgical operations on sexual organs, children with Down syndrome, infants, impudent adolescents, portraits of transgender figures, and so on. He makes wide use of photography, using its effects (close-up, tilt-up) to fix his models. Philippe Pasque began exhibiting in Paris in the 1990s. Since then, his works have also been on show in galleries in the United States, Hong Kong, Mexico, London, Hamburg, etc.

Henri-Francois Debailleux and David Rosenberg are art critics and curators. Dimitri Ozercov is curator at Hermitage Museum, Moscow.