Belgium

Nathalie Pirotte

In Nathalie Pirotte's Effigies, her intriguing series of women with animal heads, she clearly explores and interrogates female stereotypes. Her animal masks of rabbits, hinds, felines are recalling a chimera, an imaginary female monster compounded of incongruous parts. A chimera is something that exists only in the imagination and is not possible in reality. Whereas the artist has been adding sticker-like animal heads to women portraits, she creates a woman’s identity which is hoped for but at the same time illusory or impossible to achieve.

Brussels

Husk Gallery

Painting

Bichette

Gantée

Ribbon

Aspettare

Eat My Heart

Nathalie Pirotte is specialised in portraits of women, whose eyes are intentionally covered with paint.  Nathalie Pirotte transforms women into anonymous subjects by literally erasing their face with paint.The absence of the face/eyes induces the spectator to a more pictorial reading, going from the face to the context. It increases the focus on the intimate, secret side of the subject.  It is not only a research on identity but on the medium of painting in the era of Photoshop. 

Dans les bois

Trio de biches

Agata

In Tag Rose (2019), which belongs to Nathalie Pirotte's Tags series, the aim is to use high contrast to distance the basic figurative image of a woman, depicted in the background as a painting in black and white, by the presence of sensual pictorial matter, pink impasto brushstrokes applied by the painter as abstract signs, creating a new space. The layers, images of different types, are superimposed and here again end up making a canvas by hybridisation. Tags or highlights, abstract signs, impose themselves on a relatively smooth image representing a woman as a memory of the action of the author, another woman.

Tag Rose

Vue d'angles

Basculo

Although Nathalie Pirotte is specialized in women portraits, she also depicts men whose eyes are intentionally covered with paint. The artist uses high contrast to distance the basic figurative image of a man, painted in the background, by the presence of sensual pictorial matter, pink impasto applied by the painter. Nathalie Pirotte transforms women and men into anonymous subjects by literally erasing their face with paint.
It is not only a research on identity but on the medium of painting in the era of Photoshop. 

Retro-fumeuse

Betty Blue

Turning Blue

Lapin d'or

L'illusion

Mermaid

Le baiser

Husk Gallery is pleased to present the first exhibition of the Belgian artist Nathalie Pirotte. Pretty Chimeras proposes two series of recent paintings, portraits of women, masked with animal heads or whose eyes are intentionally covered with paint or integrated in the background.

In Effigies, her intriguing series of women with animal heads, she clearly explores and interrogates the female stereotypes. These masks of rabbits, hinds or felines are reminiscent of the Chimera, an imaginary creature compounded of incongruous parts. By adding these animal heads as stickers to the bodies, she creates a woman’s identity which is hoped for, but at the same time illusory or impossible to achieve. The absence of the face/eyes induces the spectator to a more pictorial reading, going from the face to the context. It increases the focus on the intimate, secret side of the subject.

In Tag Rose (2019), which belongs to the recent Tags series, the aim is to use high contrast to distance the basic figurative image of a woman, depicted in the background as a painting in black and white, by the presence of sensual pictorial matter, pink impasto brushstrokes applied by the painter as abstract signs, creating a new space. The layers, images of different types, are superimposed and here again end up making a canvas by hybridisation. Tags or highlights, abstract signs, impose themselves on a relatively smooth image representing a woman as a memory of the action of the author, another woman.

Created with the gaze of a female artist, her women portraits feature both eroticism and feminism. Depicting beautiful and apparently strong women, the construction of the female identity stands at the centre of Nathalie Pirotte’s artwork.


Pretty Chimeras