Renowned French painter Sébastien Bayet enters the North American market for the first time with a compelling body of works created at his studio in Madagascar, off the coast of Africa. These works have distilled compositions, with more atmospheric space and muted palettes than earlier works, but they retain discernible chords that tie them to that chapter, during which he explored appropriating, then reimagining, dramatic masterworks by titans of European art history.
After a series of paintings featuring religious portraits or artists' studios, Bayet turned his attention to the paintings of great masters such as Goya, Velasquez or Da Vinci. He essentially duplicated their famous portraits, replacing the famous figures with their skeletons, and their luxurious textiles with bits of paper and fabric. The resulting works are haunting as they convey a strong commentary on history as well the materialistic nature of our present culture. All this work was created in his studio in France.
Born in 1969, Bayet lives between Reims, France, and Madagascar, and splits his creative practice between the two locations. During the year, he alternates living 3 months at a time in each of his homes /studios. Obsessed with materials and texture, he creates works mixing fabric and oil paint, vacillating between figurative works and those that are more abstract and minimalistic. In all his work, he demonstrates a voracious appetite for an almost archaeological excavation of time and space.
