LOWER AND LOW ANGLE VIEWS IN PAINTING
With its photorealistic appearance, Youcef Korichi's painting never fails to fascinate, both for its virtuosity and for the strange apparent banality of its subjects.
Variations de grids (2017) Sky, Sol stony or leafy (2018), feet or crumpled sheets, a rubble skip and a broken sidewalk, Barks and ripples in the water… Here we are faced with pieces of reality which are also pieces of bravura, so convincing is the trompe-l'œil rendering.
But let's not be mistaken: for the artist, "The real subject remains painting." She who reveals herself, and who allows us to see what, without her, we would probably not see…
One cannot help but discern in his series of grids, its bushes bristling with thorns (Claws, 2018) and other barriers occupying the entire space of the canvas, of "tragic contemporary icons" 1Likewise, its fantastic draperies (Still life, 2011; Odalisque, 2014 and Being inside, 2015) appear as icons of solitude. While the works in his latest series inspired by the Puppet (El PeleleThe painting by Francisco de Goya, created in 1791, inevitably evokes the tragic fall of man. Is it the tragedy of humankind, dreaming of an afterlife yet condemned to live here below, subject to gravity? Damned or a modern-day Icarus, Korichi's puppet is dressed in a costume. A gangly, faceless body, it could be us… Isolated and falling beneath a cloud-laden sky, far removed from the carnivalesque figure jostled by women in Goya's pastoral scene, it might also remind us of the silhouette leaping from the top of a building in a somber silkscreen print entitled Suicide created in black ink by Andy Warhol in 1963 or in that of the Saut dans le vide directed in 1960 by Yves Klein.
From the fall
Shadows and protrusions of folds, bulges, creases, traces of wear…: from the sheen to the matte finish of the suit fabric, lustrous in places, and of the leather of the shoes – whose soles are even rendered with painted dirt in a masterful and dizzying contrapposto – the way Youcef Korichi's work commands admiration. Using the ancient technique of gridding to reproduce, by enlarging them, the smallest details of his photographic "documents," the painter spends two to five months on his often monumental canvases… It's easy to understand how one can be captivated by the meticulousness and accuracy of the rendering. He seeks to capture the tactility of materials, "the sensation of touch through paint and through the eye," and to "blend several ways of painting within a single canvas." 2In his latest series, teetering on the edge of tragedy and the grotesque, Korichi once again demonstrates his dexterity through the breadth of his brushstrokes, ranging from ultra-precision to loose, impasto-like application. This is evident in the ethereal quality of the clouds, contrasting with the dense folds of the puppet's clothing as it is launched into the air, only to crash to the ground.
1 – Baptiste Brun / cnap.fr/youcef-korichi-de-front
2 – Quote from an interview conducted with the painter on February 14, 2024
Born in 1974 in Constantine, Algeria, Youcef Korichi, a graduate of the ENSBA in 1999, trained in the studio of Jean-Michel Alberola before pursuing a degree in art history at university. He lives and works in Paris.
“Youcef Korichi – The Blue of the Sky”
Suzanne Tarasiève Gallery
7, rue Pastourelle, Paris 3e
From 16 March to 27 April 2024
“Youcef Korichi”
Cloister of Saint-Louis, Avignon
March 5 to 27, 2024
