Cognée, Pincemin — Correspondances — Oniris — Rennes Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: September 25 → November 7, 2020

The exhibition “Correspondances” associates Philippe Cognée and Jean-Pierre Pincemin around their paintings on paper. Colleagues at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts d’Angers in the 90s, the two painters have exchanged at length on their artistic practice and have a mutual respect for their work.

For both artists, paper is a support very often used and allows them to explore different techniques: Indian ink, encaustic, watercolor, fusin, collage. They draw their inspiration in different registers but both have this practice of paper which does not escape from that of works on canvas. For the first time, these two artists are the subject of a joint exhibition, and this exhibition is also the first major event around the work of Pincemin since his death in 2005. This exhibition event highlights different series and techniques, but revolves around large ink drawings by Pincemin from a work he explains :

Philippe Cognée, Sans titre (Foule 19H), 2019 Aquarelle sur papier — 57 × 76 cm

“The Louvre being the most erotic place I know, I thought I had to make a lady. I had in mind Picasso’s engraving Lady looking at a surrealist object. By inverting we have a lady who is looked at by a man and a donkey, it was meant to be comical, to produce good humor. But all this is terribly sexual, it became annoying, the Louvre would not have accepted it. So I transformed the men and the donkeys into skeletons. As a result, it became something completely different, not La Jeune Fille et la mort, but “the young girl being troussed by a skeleton,” which is even worse. Later, I found an engraving by Dürer on the theme of the lady being ridden by a man on horseback… This is where the word unconsciously means something. These comico-erotic works, light, allowed me to advance in the question of figuration the passage to a more narrative painting. (JP Pincemin)"

Jean-Pierre Pincemin, Sans titre (D75), 1975 Acrylique sur papier — 33 × 26 cm

The exhibition can be seen at the gallery from September 26 to November 7, and will be accessible as a virtual tour as of October.