Pierre Boncompain "Floating Worlds" (2016)

Pierre Boncompain

Floating Worlds

Pierre Boncompain

Floating Worlds

FRANKLIN BOWLES GALLERIES SAN FRANCISCO / new york

Floating Worlds Figurative Art Now The work of Pierre Boncompain refers to this world without actually being of it. Rendered in saturated colors that border on the fantastical, comprising flat planes layered to create relatively shallow spaces, Boncompain’s painted worlds are legible yet uninhabitable, except by his lithe, sylphic figures. In spite of the presence of these human figures, abstraction is never far away: the artist’s penchant for unmodulated passages of color, combined with a distinctly graphic sensibility, produces images that only just resolve into coherent pictures. And yet he never crosses the line into pure abstraction; flat, indeterminate spaces are physically and conceptually anchored by bodies, floating or in repose. In the face of frequent shifts in fortune for figurative painting in the art world over the last half-century, Boncompain’s commitment to representation, particularly of the human figure, has remained steadfast.

Indeed, some measure of public taste for figurative art has always endured, as we rarely tire of seeing ourselves depicted, investigated, distorted, and, ultimately, revealed, at the hands of the artist.

Boncompain explains the unrivaled significance of the body in the history of art: “Since the Venus of Lespugue or Cycladic Art until Brancusi and Giacometti, the history of important sculpture has celebrated the human body. It is the mirror along the path; without art, what would man know of himself?” Indeed, notwithstanding any given generations’ desire to invent new forms in art, the body never ceases to be a site of shared humanity. Moreover, Boncompain’s practice is, at base, a tactile one — the attentive viewer can often find traces of the artist’s brushwork on the painted surface Nager dans le bleu where the oil is densely layered, or one can see where pastel lines have been blurred and softened by the artist’s hand. While the locus of Boncompain’s practice is in painting, he also works in ceramic and tapestry, which are particularly tangible media. I would add that this humanistic aim in art — with regard to representations of the body and an attention to surface tactility — feels important, even urgent, in an era when the pace of technological progress is ever quickening. Bearing witness to the development of new technologies that rapidly change our environments naturally produces a contrary desire to return to the body and explore the self, countering feelings of smallness and insignificance. In Boncompain’s work, we find respite from an accelerated world; instead we encounter spaces that are by turn meditative and celebratory of life’s simple pleasures.

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“All types of subjects have their nobility but I do not know why when I paint a nude it seems to me I touch something more intimate that connects me to all humanity.”

The Floating World Born in 1939, Boncompain has devoted nearly half a century to his tireless exploration of color, and its capacity to model form and convey emotional affect. He is often discussed as an heir to the French colorist tradition, best exemplified by Henri Matisse and the Fauves at the turn of the 20th century. Less explored, however, is his relationship to non-Western precedents: like many of his French avant-garde forebears, Boncompain collects 19th century Japanese prints. The aesthetic conventions common to Japanese prints of this period — shallow space, flat planes of color, clearly outlined forms, and stylized bodies — all manifest to varying degrees in Boncompain’s paintings.

The artist’s personal collection includes depictions of famous Kabuki actors; this genre of prints was one of several labeled Ukiyo-e, meaning, roughly, “images of the floating world.” Historically, the “floating world” described the delights of Edo’s pleasure districts, specifically in Kabuki theaters or geisha houses. Taken out of historical context, however, the floating world is a label that aptly characterizes much of Boncompain’s oeuvre: unencumbered by the laws of gravity, nimble bodies inhabit indeterminate spaces, unfurling themselves in seemingly endless swathes of pure color. When the figure is absent, as in all of Boncompain’s still lifes, it is the viewer who is set afloat; our vantage point unfixed, we hover somewhere above the fruits, which are also adrift in a sea of brilliantly patterned textiles.

Bain de soleil

Nappe bleue au fauteuil d’osier

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Gravity While many of Boncompain’s spaces appear beyond gravity’s reach, in his landscapes, we find ourselves back on terra firma. The landscape paintings offset the qualities that define the figural and still life compositions: the former are horizontal rather than vertical, warm-toned as opposed to cool. In the landscapes, Boncompain’s tendency toward flatness is supplanted by perspective and depth. The perceived differences in coloration between these paintings — the warm palette that evokes terrestrial life versus the cool tones that create more subjective, psychic realities — comport with the artist’s own conception of color and its symbolism. “…each color corresponds to a state of the soul….Blue is the color of introspection, of dreams,” he describes. The intimacy that pervades those blue dreamscapes yields, in the landscapes, to an affirmation of the vast expanse of nature. Rolling hills of alternating brown and green fields loosely suggest farmlands and, relatedly, the fecundity of nature.

Mostly devoid of human presence, these paintings offer a poignant reminder that we are incidental to the broader design of nature’s life cycles; with or without human intervention, the changing of the seasons will nurture growth, but also ensure death. This cyclicality is Colline aux nuages implicated in the very structures of the landscape paintings, in the way that the interlocking fields of color rhythmically undulate across the canvas, suggesting the endless unfolding of time’s passing. Resolutely earth-bound, the landscapes act as foils to Boncompain’s figural and still life compositions, which eschew gravity and with it, the limitations of mortality. There, Boncompain creates floating dreamworlds that delight in the possibility of eternal pleasure. Taken altogether, Boncompain’s oeuvre addresses nothing short of our desire to forestall death, coupled with death’s inevitability as part of a universal life cycle.

(figure 1): Les

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raies de soleil

(figure 2): Au

centre du salon

Together but Alone Two of Boncompain’s interior scenes stand apart from the schema traced above, in that they are unusually detailed domestic interiors populated by figures, rendered in the warm-toned palette that the artist more typically uses for landscapes. Les raies de soleil (figure 1) and Au centre du salon (figure 2) are similar in content, color, and structure, but they differ considerably in mood and affect.

A brief comparison will illuminate the ways in which Boncompain manipulates seemingly minor details to orchestrate myriad psychic effects. In Au centre du salon, Boncompain depicts his wife asleep in a yellow settee, her head resting gently on folded arms. Bathed in the warm yellow light that pours in from two open windows, the room envelops her like a blanket; she is peaceful and protected.

Les raies de soleil, ostensibly set in the same room, exists in an altogether different psychic register. The three seated figures share a physical space, yet they are insurmountably distant from one another. The yellow-clad woman has a disproportionately small head, making her look strangely far away from the viewer. The seated figure on the left remains a cipher, her featureless head turned down, whether in sleep or introspection. The blue-clad woman in the foreground is also at rest, yet the peace and warmth we witnessed in Au centre du salon is replaced here by a preternatural stillness. Spatial ambiguities also contribute to an overall disquiet; one of the windows, and consequently the light source, remains just outside the frame.

Crucially, the reflection in the wall-mounted mirror displaces the viewer; instead of ourselves, we see an empty corner of the room, which further distances us from this already alienating space.

While the quiet anxiety of this painting is rare in Boncompain’s work, it reflects a larger thematic within his imagery, which is a privileging of introspection over inter-personal relationships. The artist often paints his figures with their eyes closed or cast downwards, either escaping into a dream or lost in reflection. In most of his multi-figure compositions, the bodies share space without interacting. This inward orientation does not preclude happiness — in a painting like L’étoile de la Mer (figure 3), for example, the bodies are blissfully unmoored, suspended in ecstatic celebration of their own weightlessness. More archetypal than real, perhaps these are ancient deities floating in a cosmic sea. Most importantly, like all of Boncom- (figure 3): L’étoile de la Mer pain’s figures, they summon energy from within. This, I would argue, is at the crux of Boncompain’s interest in the body and his concomitant emphasis on introspection: he posits the self as a limitless repository of strength, to be conjured not through physical action, but with mental contemplation. His paintings invite us into those psychic spaces, calm and meditative, where ultimately we will recognize ourselves.

Paula Burleigh New York-based Art Historian and frequent lecturer at Whitney Museum of American Art

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facing page:

Washington Square, II oil on canvas 57 x 44 in 114 x 146 cm

Washington Square, I oil on canvas 63 x 58.5 in 162 x 150 cm

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La place de Tulette oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

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Baignade à l’oiseau oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

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Nager dans le bleu oil on canvas 67 x 94 in 171 x 240 cm

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Les Pastèques oil on canvas 38 x 51 in 97 x 130 cm

La nappe mauve oil on canvas 38 x 51 in 97 x 130 cm

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Les deux fenĂŞtres oil on canvas 55 x 74 in 140 x 190 cm

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Le pull jaune pastel on panel 18 x 15 in 46 x 38 cm

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Les raies de soleil oil on canvas 74 x 53 in 190 x 135 cm

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Bouquet de lilas pastel on panel 18 x 15 in 46 x 38 cm

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Tulipes blances oil on canvas 18 x 13 in 46 x 33 cm

Bain de soleil Ă la serviette rayĂŠe oil on canvas 36 x 28 in 92 x 73 cm

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Citrons sur nappe bleue pastel on panel 18 x 15 in 46 x 38 cm

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Les citrons oil on canvas 13 x 18 in 33 x 46 cm

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Les oeillets d’Inde oil on canvas 16 x 13 in 41 x 33 cm

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Au centre du salon oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

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Le bel été oil on canvas 51 x 63 in 130 x 162 cm

Nuage d’été oil on canvas 55 x 82 in 140 x 210 cm

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Nu, 15 Indian ink on paper 25 x 19.5 in 65 x 50 cm

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Nu, 14 Indian ink on paper 25 x 19.5 in 65 x 50 cm

Nu, 3 Indian ink on paper 25 x 19.5 in 65 x 50 cm

Nu, 13 Indian ink on paper 25 x 19.5 in 65 x 50 cm

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Le quatuor oil on canvas 57 x 44 in 146 x 114 cm

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Le quatuor oil on paper 13 x 10.5 in 32.5 x 27 cm

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La chambre de Faucon oil on canvas 51 x 78 in 130 x 200 cm

Le mont Ventoux oil on canvas 63 x 51 in 162 x 130 cm

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Batiks rouges et aubergine oil on canvas 10.5 x 18 in 27 x 46 cm

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Bain de soleil pastel on paper 24 x 35 in 62 x 91 cm

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Le peignoir bleu pastel on panel 13 x 18 in 33 x 46 cm

Nappe bleue au fauteuil d’osier oil on canvas 36 x 28 in 92 x 73 cm

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Nu, 5 Indian ink on paper 25 x 19.5 in 65 x 50 cm

Nu, 8 Indian ink on paper 19.5 x 25 in 50 x 65 cm

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Nu, 12 Indian ink on paper 25 x 19.5 in 65 x 50 cm

Bouquet la nuit oil on canvas 57 x 44 in 146 x 114 cm

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À l’heure du midi oil on canvas 51 x 63 in 130 x 162 cm

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Colline aux nuages oil on canvas 51 x 63 in 130 x 162 cm

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Le fauteuil d’osier pastel on paper 28 x 20 in 73 x 52 cm

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La table basse aux pensĂŠes pastel on paper 31 x 39 in 80 x 101 cm

Bouquet des champs oil on canvas 14 x 10.5 in 35 x 27 cm

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Nu au tissus balinais oil on canvas 18 x 10.5 in 46 x 27 cm

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Nu sur le fauteuil bleu oil on canvas 31.5 x 25 in 81 x 65 cm

Nu à l’oiseau oil on canvas 63 x 51 in 162 x 130 cm

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“Every day I am attracted by a new subject, a new emotion. Knowing that I cannot paint all the subjects that come my way, I try to include the newest emotion into the painting I am currently working on.

It’s the same with a woman. To paint all women in the woman you love; isn’t that love?”

Le drap rose oil on canvas 44 x 63 in 114 x 162 cm

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L’étoile de mer oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

Plongée oil on canvas 51 x 35 in 130 x 90 cm

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Plongée å trois oil on canvas 49 x 75 in 125 x 192 cm

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Eros marin oil on canvas 49 x 70 in 125 x 180 cm

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Anémones oil on canvas 16 x 13 in 41 x 33 cm

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Anémones au vase de Rouen pastel on paper 18 x 15 in 46 x 38 cm

EtĂŠ sur la terrasse pastel on panel 38 x 46 cm 15 x 18 in

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L’arbre de vie oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

Batiks à l’ananas oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

Jaune d’or oil on canvas 44 x 57 in 114 x 146 cm

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Nu à l’oiseau pastel on panel 15 x 18 in 38 x 46 cm

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Terrasse du café pastel on panel 15 x 18 in 38 x 46 cm

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INDEX OIL

36 À l’heure du midi 50 Anémones 20 Au centre du salon 9 Baignade à l’oiseau 17 Bain de soleil à la serviette rayée 53 Batiks à l’ananas 30 Batiks rouges et aubergine 41 Bouquet des champs 35 Bouquet la nuit 37 Colline aux nuages 49 Eros marin 53 Jaune d’or 8 La place de Tulette 12 La nappe mauve 29 La chambre de Faucon 12 La nappe mauve 52 L’arbre de vie 23 Le bel été 45 Le drap rose 29 Le mont Ventoux 26 Le quatuor 27 Le quatuor 19 Les citrons 13 Les deux fenêtres 20 Les oeillets d’Inde 14 Les raies de soleil 12 Les Pastèques 46 L’étoile de mer 11 Nager dans le bleu 33 Nappe bleue au fauteuil d’osier 42 Nu sur le fauteuil bleu

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42 Nu au tissus balinais 43 Nu à l’oiseau 23 Nuage d’été 47 Plongée 48 Plongée å trois 16 Tulipes blances 7 Washington Square, I 6 Washington Square, II PASTEL

50 Anémones au vase de Rouen 31 Bain de soleil 16 Bouquet de lilas 18 Citrons sur nappe bleue 51 Eté sur la terrasse 41 La table basse aux pensées 39 Le fauteuil d’osier 32 Le peignoir bleu 14 Le pull jaune 54 Nu à l’oiseau 55 Terrasse du café FALL 2016 INK

25 Nu, 3 34 Nu, 5 34 Nu, 8 34 Nu, 12 25 Nu, 13 25 Nu, 14 24 Nu, 15

Project Managers:

Stacey Bellis, Ken Amorino Photographer:

Jean Louis Losi

Catalog Design:

Susan Tsuchiya Front cover: Baignade à l’oiseau (detail) Back cover: Le bel été Envelope: Nu à l’oiseau

SAN FRANCISCO

NEW YORK

765 Beach Street San Francisco CA 94109 349 Geary Street San Francisco CA 94102 415.441.8008 / 800.926.9535

431 West Broadway New York NY 10012 212.226.1616 / 800.926.9537

$40

www.franklinbowlesgallery.com