Impressionism keeps on inspiring artists today. Playful lights, color patterns, everyday life scenes, fleeting moments remain key words of contemporary impressionism.
Dominic Virtosu, Anne Brenner and Francoise Leblond will be featured during SINGULART’s New Impressionism Auction running from the 3rd to the 9th of June, don’t miss their insights. They tell us about how impressionism has influenced their artworks and what they would like to convey through their canvases.
Dominic Virtosu
How does Impressionism influence your artworks?
Throughout my entire artistic career, I was deeply influenced by the impressionists and their use of light and color to convey the emotion of a fleeting moment. It seems to me that the breakthrough of this art movement has dramatically shifted the way many artists make paintings but also enriched their view on what figurative painting has to express.
My artworks are nourished by the lavish color palette of the impressionist movement – their use of pure tones and thick dabs of paint is a testament to their visual revolution. The other important element that I’m interested in is the presence of shadows and their representation within painting. A natural shadow seen in an outdoor space will be represented by cold color tones whereas the shadows in interior spaces will be represented by warm tones. In my work, I sometimes transform the shadow into an almost abstract object, presenting it as an integral and very visible part of the composition.
Which ‘impression’ would you like to convey through your artworks?
Part of what my painting is about, is showing the abundance of tones that lives within any subject. I am consciously restructuring each surface of color into its components and this process is enriching the compositions and also bringing to light, more than just a figurative object or situation, but a mood and state of mind that conveys emotion.
I use the impressionist technique to multiply the brushstrokes and I am interested in the optical effect that color generates on the retina – exciting its receptors to the point of creating a vibration that incites a unique visual experience for the viewer. It’s almost a hypnotic effect that intrigues the eye, the more one looks at the painting.
Texture has also a lot to do with my process: the alternance between thick and thin areas of paint generates a rhythm for the eye to bounce on, hereby focusing the attention on the important subject and allowing for spaces to rest the gaze on.
ANNE BRENNER
How does Impressionism influence your artworks?
For me, light plays with shapes and that is the real lesson of the Impressionists. I am sensitive to the union of human and nature and when I look at an impressionist painting, I see the light that connects and merges all the elements. As I compose a painting, my mind is imbued with the works of art that I have encountered and loved.
Which ‘impression’ would you like to convey through your artworks?
Through my paintings, I try to give a timeless impression of a link between humans, animals and nature. I try to stage the living to experience the world and the other. I like to feel on the edge of realism and a form of poetry to create an alliance between ecological awareness and contemplation.
FRANÇOISE LEBLOND
How does Impressionism influence your artworks?
What I like about the impressionist movement is that they created a model of artistic freedom with brighter colours, simple patterns and play of light, which even today continues to inspire contemporary painting. It is an art that makes us dream and brings a certain look into everyday scenes. The painting “The Banquet”, is a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” by depicting the cats with freedom, humour and gaiety.
Which ‘impression’ would you like to convey through your artworks?
I am very touched when people tell me that I have conveyed an emotion or a feeling and that my work is an anti-stress that puts a smile on everyone’s face… I like art that doesn’t take itself seriously, that has no borders, no limits, no rules.
Dominic, Anne and Françoise have all been inspired by the impressionism movement in their works albeit the different interpretations. However, each of these paintings present innovative imageries and techniques which reflect our times. Explore our New Impressionism auction in order to discover more artworks and more artists influenced by the classical masters yet clearly belonging to our contemporary world.
