Sunday, November 1, 2009

In a friend's kitchen

Interiors

Louisa Dusinberre came to Paris from London in the 1980's and started to paint in the mid-nineties after a career in communication. Her show here chez Grace opens this week and is so named because the subjects of her canvasses are her kitchen and those of her friends, her own studio, and her husband's collection of tea tins and pots.

Louisa also does portrait work - she paints her friends and her husband, her mother's garden in the south of England and the details of where they live.

Now that her paintings are hung, I understand more where she is coming from. She wanted, in her own words, "to bring to the viewer an emotive understanding of her environment." And her canvasses have a glowy warmth that is like a swallow of a very nice Cognac.

The first two shows of hers which I saw (at the Visconti Gallery in the 6th arrondissement and Artstarte in 7th) were of outsize people, children and pets (the two Yorkshire terriers of a mutual friend).And so infatuated was I with a portrait she did of her mother, and also a self-portrait she did (very dark!) I sat for Louisa who produced a painting that I am very fond of and which will make its public debut at her opening here. (See "Lady of a Portrait," an earlier post.)

Pictured: "Fetish Kitchen II," 2005, acrylic on canvas, 80 cm. x 100 cm. €500.

3 comments:

Richard Mark Johnson said...

Of course, judgments cannot be made well on the basis of a single work (nor would it be polite to attempt it) disregarding how lovely the work may be. Just as well, because "In a friend's kitchen" is positively lovely. It puts me in mind of the beginning of Velasquez' career. He painted bodegones (kitchen pictures - though they were not necessarily kitchens - they were meant to be hung in the kitchen) then the rage in the Spanish Court of Philip IV. Every painter of the day did them, but, Velasquez made this incidental work speak down through the centuries. Everything I ever see that reminds me of them makes me smile.
"In a friend's kitchen" is immediately charming and I wish I could see the others.

Richard Mark Johnson said...

While I'm at it I may as well correct my own misapprehension of the title. Where I referred to "In a friend's kitchen," I should have referenced "Fetish Kitchen II." Apologies.

celine said...

C'est à la fois un intérieur une cuisine précise et en même temps la cuisine d'un ou d'une autre personne, précision du détail, beauté et l'objet est transcendé. J'ai vu cette exposition.

It is at once an inside a precise kitchen and at the same time a kitchen of one or another person, precision of the detail, the beauty and the object is transcent. I saw this exhibition.