Exhibition Information

Jean-Philippe Delhomme. “Shelim”
2021 Photo: Claire Dorn. Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin. Oil on canvas, wood frame 114 x 146 x 3 cm | 44 7/8 x 57 1/2 x 1 3/16 in.

Jean-Philippe Delhomme. “Lucian Freud and flowers”
2021 Photo: Claire Dorn. Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin. Oil on canvas 55 x 46 x 2 cm | 21 5/8 x 18 1/8 x 0 13/16 in.

Jean-Philippe Delhomme. “Flowers and Artforum”
2021 Photo: Claire Dorn. Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin. Oil on canvas, wood fram 41 x 33 x 2 cm | 16 1/8 x 13 x 0 13/16 in.

Jean-Philippe Delhomme. “Shelim”
2021 Photo: Claire Dorn. Courtesy of the Artist and Perrotin. Oil on canvas, wood frame. 146 x 114 x 3 cm | 57 1/2 x 44 7/8 x 1 3/16 in.

			Flowers wither away and books remain. The implicit bargain of the title Flowers for Books is therefore a fool's market. Are the flowers an offering to the repository of knowledge held by the books? Or are they an affirmation of the superiority of the full bloom? 

The quirky and sparkling surprise of the books and the flowers as they compete for the fore of the painting is very pleasurable. 

The flowers and books compete with one another for the painting’s central narrative, resulting in an unexpected sparking. Those still lifes are not that still, after all, and the cohabitation of the books and the flowers within the pictorial space is not fully comfortable - awkward empty space abounds with a makeshift cardboard box underneath and books flashing their colorful dust jacket.

Arranging flowers and books to compose a still life is a whole different game than painting a portrait from life. It is the articulation of the two genres — still life and portrait — that reveal the intention of the exhibition. Explaining what happens when he is painting a model sitting in front of him, Delhomme talks about the exchanged gaze: “At the opposite of the snapshot is the arrested movement caught by the camera’s eye. I’m aiming at painting the uncertainty, the durable silence, the unformulated questioning of the exchange of gaze between model and painter. The model’s gaze to the painter as is.”

Flowers for Books could be interpreted as the metaphor of the painter’s gaze encountering the model's eyes looking back at him, the tenuous expression and fragile equilibrium of a portrait from life. Painting without didactic intention but candor and faith in representation that eschews any form of justification. A classic situation of a painter and model in the studio but stripped of any form of power dynamic, affirming the model's presence, never denuded, never objectified with too many details. Between the risk of missing and the triumph of catching the right moment, Delhomme paintings manifest the renewed potential of classical genres. Still life and portrait are, under Delhomme's touch, the expression of the here and now, within the confinement of the studio that reflects our isolation in 2020. Delhomme, who is a very acute observer of culture, proposes an alternative narrative and demonstrates that genres such as portraiture and still life tested by a long history talk to us about the present time with urgency. 

Lucien Terras, New York, March 2021



JEAN-PHILIPPE DELHOMME

Lives and works between Paris, France and New York, New York, USA

Jean-Philippe Delhomme (born 1959) is a French artist, illustrator and writer. He has been painting for many years, but kept this side of his work private until his first exhibition in New York in 2015. Delhomme’s still lifes or landscapes are not just painted, but authored; the thread between his different forms of expression: drawing, writing and painting. Jean-Philippe Delhomme also portrays immense expression through portraiture, conveying an authorly perspective which serves as the common thread throughout his practice. 

Delhomme's latest solo exhibitions took place at Perrotin Paris in 2019 and at Perrotin New York in 2020. He also did a special project within an artists’residence at La Sira Gallery (Asnières, France). 

In January 2020, Jean-Philippe Delhomme has been selected as the first Instagram artist in residence at the Musée d’Orsay. Over the course of the past year, he has been imagining the "digital life" of the artists whose works made up the wealth of the museum‘s collection.

Lately, the artist worked on a new mural to be installed in Hong Kong’s soon-to-open private members’ club, Carlyle & Co at the Rosewood Hotel. 

He published books with Louis Vuitton, Rizzoli, Editions Denoël and contributed to numerous magazines such as Vanity Fair France, Zeit Magazin, LA Times, GQ US and France, A.D. France, M Le Monde, Apartamento, August Journal, The New Yorker, Vogue ( France, UK, Japan, Spain).


For safety reasons, the exhibition will be open by appointment only until further notice.
Please contact seoul@perrotin.com to make an appointment.