ART CITIES:London-Nathalie Du Pasquier
A solo exhibition with works of the French artist Nathalie Du Pasquier is on presentation at Pace Gallery in London. While Nathalie Du Pasquier’s early work as a designer was concerned with the creation of practical objects and spatial relationships, her paintings depict scenes which brings these subjects into the fantastical realm. These images explore shifting landscapes that are grounded in reality by her clear use of three-dimensional constructions.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Pace Gallery Archive
Self-taught artist and designer Nathalie Du Pasquier was born in Bordeaux, in 1957. She lives in Milan. Between 1975 and 1977, she traveled extensively through Gabon and West Africa, and her experiences during that time informed her later work, in 1979 she moved to Milan. In Milan, she met the designer George Sowden and in 1981, she and Sowden were asked by designer and architect Ettore Sottsass, to become two of the founding members of the influential post-modernist design and architecture collective Memphis Group. During this period she designed vibrant and graphic surface patterns for numerous textiles, carpets, and plastic laminates, as well as objects and furniture. Her design was influenced by the African textile patterns as well as Wiener Werkstätte, Arts and Crafts, and William Morris. The group’s colorful furniture has been described as “bizarre”, “misunderstood”, “loathed”, and “a shotgun wedding between Bauhaus and Fisher-Price”. T colorful geometric style became most popular and widely accepted in the ‘90s, where it had an impact on the design of furniture, architecture, and household items. Since 1987, Du Pasquier has dedicated herself to painting, though she occasionally still does design work. Most of her paintings are still lifes however the recent works don’t depict a group of things but instead portray a relationship between forms. From the still lifes and surrealist-inflected landscapes of the late ‘80s and early ’90s, her work has gradually moved towards more abstract compositions, many are paintings of constructions she has created herself. She says about her work “I spent much of the ‘90s discovering, or rediscovering, art history, thinking about the connections between painters through the ages, from Roman paintings (in particular the frescoes at Pompeii), to medieval miniatures, to early Renaissance works, to Italian novecento artists: Giorgio de Chirico, Giorgio Morandi, Mario Sironi. At that time, I was also painting a lot of still lifes and landscapes, but my work since has evolved into something less to do with real objects and more to do with abstract shapes”. In general her work is concerned with arrangements circulating between existing things, paintings and three-dimensional objects. In this sense it does not have to do with decorating objects. Through her work, she explores various modes of representation, driven by her observation of the world and her interest in perception.
Info: Pace Gallery, 6 Burlington Gardens, London, Duration: 27/6-29/7/17, Days & Hours: The-Sat 10:00-18:00, www.pacegallery.com
