Artist: Louise Sartor
Exhibition title: Off Season
Venue: Bel Ami, Los Angeles, US
Date: May 25 – July 7, 2018
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Paintings, furtive, like adolescents running away from home, from a seaside resort town in the South of France, to the City of Angels, seaside as well, but resort not – there is no off season in LA. Saison morte: dead season, a pause, a break, some sort of an ending; the party’s over, everyone goes home.
From the paintings of intensely scrutinized and gazed-upon female figures, both subjects and objects of attention and desire, Louise has turned to meticulous still lifes and landscapes, with the human no longer to be seen, but still felt everywhere. Sicilian Lovers, 2018, depicting a pair of traditional vases, given the same care as the living; per-haps it’s the same anyway, alive or not. Absence is indication of what once was, of what could happen again, and what is present is melancholy.
The same view from the artist’s room, painted at different weathers – Storm’s End and Summer’s End, both 2018 – like two sides of a coin. Between moods.
Instagrammable moments, delicate and fragile, fleeting away, scrolled past; lifestyle, or dropping out in solitude, moments of intimacy, not to be infringed upon; yet shared. From life.
Louise Sartor (b. 1988, Paris) lives and works in the South of France. Recent exhibitions include MAMCO, Geneva; Le Plateau, FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris; Château de Versailles (Palais de Tokyo off-site), Versailles; Galerie Crèvecœur, Paris; Ghebaly Gallery, Los Angeles; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dôle, France; Tonus, Paris; Woodmill, London; HHDM, Vienna, among others. Upcoming shows include Gwangju Biennale, Korea; Galerie der Stadt Schwaz, Austria; Condo at Bodega, New York.
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Off Season, 2018, exhibition view, Bel Ami, Los Angeles
Louise Sartor, Nighttime, 2018, gouache and watercolor pencil on paper, 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in (24 x 17 cm)
Louise Sartor, Summer’s End, 2018, gouache on cardboard, 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in (29.7 x 21 cm)
Louise Sartor, Study in Pink, 2018, gouache and watercolor pencil on paper, 7 x 5 1/8 in (17.7 x 13 cm)
Louise Sartor, Sicilian Lovers, 2018, gouache and watercolor pencil on paper, 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in (24 x 17 cm)
Louise Sartor, Storm’s End, 2018, gouache on cardboard, 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in (29.7 x 21 cm)
Louise Sartor, Sweet Peas, 2018, gouache and watercolor pencil on paper, 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in (24 x 17 cm)
Louise Sartor, Avenue de la Côte Vermeille, 2018, gouache on cardboard, 11 5/8 x 8 1/4 in (29.7 x 21 cm)
Louise Sartor, Ballantine’s, 2018, gouache and watercolor pencil on paper, 9 3/8 x 6 5/8 in (24 x 17 cm)