#happiness first

Gaël Davrinche is an artist of the 21st century, one whose practice delves into the history and traditions of academic painting while exploring its figurative dimension. Many of his works can be described as “paintings of flowers”, as illustrated by the eight or so series that comprise Botanica and yet this subject is no longer as relevant as it once was.

At the turn of the 20th century, other more “modern” artistic considerations meant that floral motifs were left by the wayside, before the decline in figurative painting and the arrival of new forms of artistic expression finally saw them disappear entirely.

What is unique about the body of work of Gaël Davrinche is the way in which, thanks to an approach based on referring to and appropriating the art of the past, his figurative paintings establish a dialogue between the present and times gone by.

In terms of their allusions to the past, the series that comprise Botanica and Portraits, are of a different nature. Whereas broadly speaking, the paintings in Portraits aspire to revisit cultural history, those in Botanica strive instead to dereference themselves, that is to distance themselves ever so slightly from comment, analysis and comparison. They were a way for painters to put the focus on the painting itself rather than its narrative aspects.