About the artwork
Portrait d'enfant (2004) is an oil on canvas by French painter Philippe Pasqua, fully in keeping with the expressive and emotional power of his work. The image is strikingly frontal: a child with a realistic, intense face, painted with a thick, vibrant material, somewhere between fragile gentleness and unsettling gravity. Pasqua avoids any form of idealization. He offers a raw, almost clinical portrait, where the young model's gaze questions, even destabilizes. The flesh is treated with pasty thicknesses, muted tones and nervous impastos, giving the canvas an almost sculptural presence. The child seems caught in an emotional suspension, between innocence and latent anxiety.
Expert opinion
In Portrait d'enfant, Pasqua captures the subtle tension between fragility and strength, in a disturbing yet profoundly human face-to-face encounter. The work overturns the tradition of child portraiture, revealing its shadowy, fleshy side, far removed from the stereotypes of frozen innocence. A powerful, visceral canvas, it testifies to the pictorial and ethical intensity of Philippe Pasqua's work.
About the artist
Born in Grasse in 1965, Philippe Pasqua is a French artist. Self-taught, he began figurative painting and revealed himself as a portraitist. While he renews his mediums, the human being remains the subject of his regularly provocative compositions, which highlight marginalized individuals. He was inspired by the work of Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud. Although he has eluded the traditional circuits, he has gradually established himself as a key figure on the contemporary scene. After his first exhibition in 1990 at the Espace Confluence in Paris, Philippe Pasqua has never ceased to exhibit his work. His work has been exhibited worldwide, including at the Patrick Painter Gallery in Los Angeles, the Ahlers Foundation in Germany, the 604 Gallery in Korea, the Centre d'art contemporain de Malaga in Spain and the Oceanographic Museum in Monaco.
Additional info
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