Inès Longevial Brings it Back to the Body in ‘Skin of a Storm’
On view at Almine Rech Tribeca.
Summary
- Almine Rech Tribeca is currently hosting Skin of a Storm by French artist Inès Longevial through August 1.
- The exhibition features oil paintings, drawings and monotype prints that explore human form and the multiplicity of skin.
For Inès Longevial, a body is a home. It’s an ethos reflected in her self-portraiture – diaristic captures, rich with washes of crimson, chantilly and ultramarine. Her current solo exhibition at Almine Rech in Tribeca distills this spirit into a sublime study of skin as the French artist takes her portraits to new heights.
Pace and process ground Skin of a Storm. Central to the exhibition is a suite of new oil paintings, many of which were completed in a one-sitting “flow-state” as Lynn Maliszewski” describes in a recent press statement. “The female form becomes a surface littered with subtle footnotes, like an odd wrinkle in a pleated skirt or the deep crease of a dog-earred page.” Longevial filters subjects through her own myopic vision, resulting in self-portraits that feel luminous, alive and unapologetic; skin that is unconcerned with viewer’s gaze and rather relishes in her own.
A set of drawings see an arresting shift, with deadpan eyes meeting the audience head-on. Facial features become one with sharp pliés and ballet slippers, snakes and butterflies, suggesting themes of transformation, myth-making and the dream of freedom. Also on view for the first time are pairs of monotypes, a lesser shown aspect of Longevial’s practice. While initially appearing as “identical twins,” closer inspection reflects a life in flux where “skin narrates the artist’s relation to her changing world – stretching, sagging, morphing and reflecting altercations or victories no one could know the true depth of.”
Skin of a Storm is now on view in New York through August 1. In addition to the exhibition, Visage Théâtre, a new publication of Longevial’s drawings and poems is now available via Almine Rech Editions for $42 USD.
Almine Rech Tribeca
361 Broadway,
New York, NY 10013
