Paintings: Elements

About

Mizuma & Kips is pleased to announce the opening of “Paintings : Elements” a solo exhibition by artist Jean Marie Haessle. 

At age 81, Jean Marie Haessle cannot stay still. In this solo show at Mizuma & Kips  gallery, the artist presents some recently finished works next to older ones, mostly from 2010-2015.
Titled “Elements” one can quickly understand the unifying raison of this name. All works, except a few smaller ones, are oil on canvas where the major theme of the artist is nature. Not nature as landscape but a transfiguration of the “substance” itself.
An investigation of grass in a field rendered in all over brush strokes in this large recent painting titles “blue grass”. Or “water” another freshly finished work where the feeling of flowing water is translated by his nervous brush work interrupted by the yellow/orange bursts of lights to give the depth and contrast to this horizontal composition.
A large painting from 2017 while painted in heavy impasto at a viewing distance is perceived more as light ethereal rendering of a morning or evening sky. The most impalpable of the elements, air is the alpha and omega of this painting, a clear “tour de force” by this artist.
One smaller work is a square format painted in acrylic on canvas. Titled “reflection” it has an aura of Monet’s nympheas  one of his avowed all-time master.

To quote art critic Jonathan Goodman, an excerpt of an earlier writing on Haessle:
…Haessle makes sure that his sense of color forms the basis of a remarkably structured work of art. He proves that the molten hues he invests the painting with are so strong as to furnish a supporting structure for the composition. Who would have thought that so much could have been done with color alone?