In Rob Tucker's landscapes, there are container ships and large houses, the sea and swimming pools. There is the call of the distant and an immediate proximity. Images like objects circulate and his painting is a game of nesting. His still lifes, or still lifes, represent the possibility of an interiority, as if it were possible to enter these spaces. It would suffice, as he likes to say, to double-click. From canvas to canvas and from one format to another, the subjects seem to create connections and this awareness of the circulation that we can have on the Internet enriches our relationship with images. The play of borders thus seems to create digital windows and these frames that painting creates allow us to work on the composition in hollow or negative. Marked by Morandi's engravings, the painter seeks to rediscover the impression of the bowl that marks the beginning of the image on paper. Once he has distributed these blocks of bold colours that allow him to simulate an attractive package or a beautiful façade, he draws with a brush a fragile flower in a garden, a few waves, or patterns that testify to a start of the hand, a vibration of the eye. The gesture, broader in the large formats (160x140cm) is very important for the artist who claims the brushstroke, the work in layers. Each canvas is coated with epoxy resin that “fossilizes” the paint and adds a shimmering aspect above these playful lines or these assertive touches. This finish perfects the object and recalls from afar the technique of fixed under glass. The question of the primer is important for Rob Tucker who shares the fascination of pop artists, including the early works of David Hockney, for surfaces. The containers he represents thus refer to the images of desire conveyed by advertising or social media by assimilating them to happiness while being undermined, dug by this juxtaposition of drips, accidents and drawing. Rob Tucker's paintings contain a strange melancholy, the triviality of these subjects represented in an almost dramatic way allows us to feel like there is a void around. With these paintings, we are faced with sensitive containers. Henri Guette Art critic, member of the AICA, and exhibition curator
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