ARTISTS
Philippe Cogn茅e: Crowds
French artist Philippe Cogn茅e returns to Paris and Galerie Templon for the first time in four years with an exhibition devoted to his new series of paintings of crowds. With these works, he continues to explore the individual and the collective, the visible and invisible, the place of the real and the place of art.
Figures emerge then dissolve into compact, hazy throngs within compositions that at first sight appear abstract. The viewer, faced with such extreme pictorial density, can no longer distinguish the image as figure from the material: 鈥楾hat which is enclosed within this layer of paint, within the crowd itself, is the individual.鈥�
鈥楩rom figuration to defiguration, immediate to distant鈥�, Philippe Cogn茅e鈥檚 blurred crowds are redolent of visions provided by new technologies and satellites, at once implacable yet imprecise. In the face of this proliferation of degraded images, Cogn茅e responds with the power of painting, unique in its ability to transcend the movement of swarming humanity within a landscape that is at times dreamlike.
Philippe Cogn茅e鈥檚 twenty-year artistic journey has led him to encounter a reality that is both stark and commonplace, made up of motorways, suburbs, industrial abattoirs, supermarket shelves and recycling plants. He draws on this encounter to paint a remarkable portrait of a reality described by Guy Tosatto as 鈥榮ignposted and indefinable.鈥�
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French artist Philippe Cogn茅e returns to Paris and Galerie Templon for the first time in four years with an exhibition devoted to his new series of paintings of crowds. With these works, he continues to explore the individual and the collective, the visible and invisible, the place of the real and the place of art.
Figures emerge then dissolve into compact, hazy throngs within compositions that at first sight appear abstract. The viewer, faced with such extreme pictorial density, can no longer distinguish the image as figure from the material: 鈥楾hat which is enclosed within this layer of paint, within the crowd itself, is the individual.鈥�
鈥楩rom figuration to defiguration, immediate to distant鈥�, Philippe Cogn茅e鈥檚 blurred crowds are redolent of visions provided by new technologies and satellites, at once implacable yet imprecise. In the face of this proliferation of degraded images, Cogn茅e responds with the power of painting, unique in its ability to transcend the movement of swarming humanity within a landscape that is at times dreamlike.
Philippe Cogn茅e鈥檚 twenty-year artistic journey has led him to encounter a reality that is both stark and commonplace, made up of motorways, suburbs, industrial abattoirs, supermarket shelves and recycling plants. He draws on this encounter to paint a remarkable portrait of a reality described by Guy Tosatto as 鈥榮ignposted and indefinable.鈥�
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