After the Party
Art Basel & the great fairs · A critical perspective
From one season to the next, the great international art fairs light up the art world beneath their glass roofs. Crowds gather, photographs are taken, and even a banana taped to a wall becomes memorable. It is a celebration, and it has its charm. There are beautiful paintings too, of course, but between attractions, the eye rarely has time to linger.
Fabricia Lepoutre’s painting asks for time. In 1947, Cahiers d’Art, the leading avant-garde journal, ran the headline: “Is Pierre Bonnard a great painter?” Matisse answered yes in the margin. The point here is not to compare her work with that of these masters. The anecdote simply reminds us that light eventually triumphs over fashion.
The light in Fabricia’s paintings makes us pause. At first, we try to understand how she dared: these forms that brush against one another and confront each other, these colours laid down without hesitation, these spaces that tilt with such audacity. Then we stop searching. We have left reality behind and entered poetry, where a chair seems to be waiting and, behind our backs, objects carry on their conversations.
She paints freely, without asking permission. Her paintings do not impose themselves: they settle in, and gradually come to inhabit those who live with them.
One of them may already be waiting for you.
— J.-F. Wuillai
Continue the conversation with Fabricia’s paintings.
Explore the interiorsPaintings in their surroundings