Nicolas Maureau

Nicolas Maureau was born in 1977. He lives and works in Toulouse. He is a graduate of the Rennes Beaux-Arts School (France).

Nicolas Maureau, employs techniques and themes from classical painting, initiates dialog between our "pictorial past" and his own practice. While eliminating details, the "dark matter" that delimitates the body and the painting creates a close-up effect, forcing the gaze to the expressiveness of the flesh. Faces, torsos, hands, ankles, knees acquire a unique vibration and reveal the protagonists' inner life.

"The characters are cut from snapshots taken without their knowledge in public places. They are unaware of the fact that someone takes their picture but, knowing that they might be observed, compose an attitude", explains the artist.

Certain paintings are disturbing to the point that we don't know anymore if welook at a photograph or a painting. The "drapés", evoking a conventional imagery, are reinterpreted by the artist with contemporary symbols, with the same attention to detail: "God is in the details", wrote Aby Warburg. Between anatomical realism and abstraction of the surfaces, these paintings tell, each one of them, the story of a conflict, an internal conflict or situation, the bodies seem to implode, loaded with emotions.

Nicolas Maureau, revisits pictorial realism in his own style. While doing so, he gives us clues through titles, we revealing the names of the protagonists: Saint - Thomas, Mary Magdalene, Jesus, Apollo, Danae, Bacchus, Icarus, Ganymede, Atalante, Armide, etc.