SANS TITRE, 2008
Huile sur toile, 380 x 200 cm
Paris, collection privée
On the surface of the canvas there are nothing but projections of matter – marks, thick daubs of paint, criss-crossed or formless touches. A certain distance is needed for the image to emerge.
When Philippe Pasqua paints bodies, he seems to interfere with the skin. It is as if he turned it back, or led our gaze through it. What appears is something along the lines of blood pressure, tendon, muscle, and the circulation of energies and humours. The flesh, then, more than the skin. And the body – nothing but the body: little or no clothing, no décor (with the exception sometimes of an armchair or a draped curtain). Everything is concentrated – our gaze as well as the painter’s – on a fleeting attitude, a moment of tension or complete relaxation, like an offering.