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." The painting that reveals itself, and that allows us to see what, without it, we would probably not see…
One cannot help but discern, however, in his series of Grids , his thorn-studded bushes ( Claws , 2018), and other barriers occupying the entire canvas, “tragic contemporary icons.” ¹ Similarly, his fantastical draperies ( Still Life , 2011; Odalisque , 2014; and Being Inside , 2015) appear as icons of solitude. Meanwhile, the works in his latest series, inspired by The Puppet ( El Pelele ) painted in 1791 by Francisco de Goya, inevitably evoke the tragic fall of humankind. Is this the tragedy of the human being dreaming of an afterlife and 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 under a cloud-laden sky, far from the carnival figure jostled by women in Goya’s pastoral scene, it can also make us think of the silhouette jumping from the top of a building in a dark silkscreen print entitled Suicide, made in black ink by Andy Warhol in 1963, or of Leap into the Void, made in 1960 by Yves Klein.
From the fall
Shadows and protrusions of folds, creases, wrinkles, traces of wear…: from the sheen to the matte finish of the suit fabric, lustrous in places, and the leather of the shoes – whose soles are rendered down to the dirt painted in a masterful and breathtaking contrapposto – Youcef Korichi's style commands admiration. Using the ancient technique of gridding to reproduce, by enlarging them, the smallest details of his photographic “documents,” the painter works for two to five months on his often monumental canvases… It is easy to understand how one can be captivated by the meticulousness and accuracy of the rendering. Seeking to capture the tactility of materials, "the sensation of touch through paint and eye," and to "blend several ways of painting in a single picture," Korichi once again demonstrates in his latest series, bordering on the tragic and the grotesque, his dexterity through the breadth of his gesture, ranging from ultra-precision to loose application, including impasto. 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 3rd
From 16 March to 27 April 2024
“Youcef Korichi”
Cloister of Saint-Louis, Avignon
March 5 to 27, 2024
