Capucines 2019

Cricorps made this painting ‘Capucines’ with oil paint in tones of red, green, and orange. I can imagine Cricorps in the studio, stepping back, squinting, and adjusting. Notice how the palette is earthy, warm, and slightly dissonant - that makes it sing! The brushstrokes are applied in these chunky rectangular shapes that feel like a puzzle, a mosaic, or even pixels on a screen. This might be what the world looks like if you see things in terms of colour blocks. The image wavers between abstraction and representation and invites us to consider the relationship between them. There’s something so earnest and vulnerable about still-life paintings. It’s almost as if the artist is saying, "I’m here, I’m looking, I’m trying to make sense of things." Cricorps reminds me of the great tradition of painters before them like Cezanne, Morandi, and even the contemporary painter Lois Dodd. This all makes me wonder how painters are in conversation with one another across time.