Pierre Mornet at BFB Gallery in Paris

Pierre Mornet's show opened last night at BFB in the 5th arrondissement. I don't think I'd had the chance to really look at a large body of work by this artist before, and the overall mood his images create is quite effective. There are a few small, square shaped canvasses, but the rest are oil paintings on paper, very nicely set in wide, sobre black wood frames that enhances the feel of decadent despair that permeates these paintings.

The subjects of Mornet's images tend to be beautiful but somewhat haunting young women with dark hair in settings that evoke pre-World War I symbolism. But we're far from Mark Ryden's "goth-esque" heroines in style : sometimes we're looking at textures of paint and color that recall the Nabis (Denis and Vuillard come to mind over and over again); at others there is a "Balthusian" clarity in his attachment to his subjects, a deep fascination with these haunting eyes peering out of languid, diaphanous faces that are both entrancing and unsettling.  The young women lie or sit motionless, as if the weight of some unbearable "ennui" has overtaken them, or meander aimlessly through landscapes that are either semi-abstract renderings of light and color or tightly structured, Rousseau-like decors. What this work lacks in variety it more than makes up for in intensity -- not to mention a entrancing melancholy that's hard to put your finger on, but which I highly recommend you experience firsthand!

This show is up through late April at the Galerie BFB, 5 rue Dante in the 5th Arrondissement.