Van Hove - Drawings & Paintings
Paris From September 13, 2023 to September 23, 2023
Trained like painters of the 19th century who were born before the invention of photography, Van Hove works from live model and "by hand", according to a very classic process: the drawing of a first study on vellum paper after the gestural transposition of the starting idea, followed by a second with the same model or another, or even a third if necessary, etc.; then an adjusting of the faces on tracing papers to give the illusion of space; and the preparatory staging in charcoal and white chalk on kraft paper from her tracings taped on the studio walls - in the case of a scene with several characters, all the studies are arranged on the wall for the "dress rehearsal", a kind of virtual collective posing session with the "character-objects" (tea, coffee, dishes, drawings, books, lamps, etc.); after this advanced development, a transfer on the canvas including a rework with the brush in the presence of the model. These drawings constitute a vast formal repertoire of feminine attitudes, delicately emphasized by a richness of effects of light, shadow and volume, which recalls her affinities with the masters of the Renaissance.
Her illusionist and narration-less painting merges with reality and frees itself from it. The extremely meticulous description of bodies and materials serves a personal mythology, embodied by her models. Understudies of the artist but also of the characters that Van Hove admires in Egyptian and ancient Greek statuary as well as in the masterpieces of painting, these young women solemnize the small daily gestures to ward off anguish. They transfigure reality, deliberately reduced to the closed interior of her studio or garden, in a harmoniously suspended time: a parenthesis of calm without luxury nor voluptuousness, slightly disturbed by a few still lifes of flowers, simple pleasures, sentimental objects or old editions of novels that highlight this fragile balance. In this trompe-l'oeil interval, between indolence and sophistication, daydream and half-consciousness, Van Hove gives form and face to allegorical beauty, both familiar and elusive: "The more I try to grasp or to capture beauty, the more its mystery escapes me. But that neither surprises me nor despairs me any longer, for I have been seized by a passion for this very pursuit. No matter how vain it may sometimes appear to me, it has become my life". Her enchanting fascination for the innate grace of women reveals, according to the words of Belgian writer Jacques De Decker, "a conservatory of epiphanies". This pagan praise of the body, this choreographic language of gestures crystallize the quintessence and the unchanged of femininity.
Born in 1942, Francine Van Hove lives and works in Paris. After having prepared in the 1960s the art teaching certification and briefly worked as a teacher, she decided to devote herself only to painting. Regularly showed in Europe and North America, her work is part of many private collections.
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16 rue Guénégaud
75006, Paris
France
Details
Les Deux Chaises longues
Francine Van Hove
Painting - 60 x 92 x 2 cm Painting - 23.6 x 36.2 x 0.8 inch
$17,726
Étude pour Clémentine & Café
Francine Van Hove
Fine Art Drawings - 55 x 77 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 21.7 x 30.3 x 0.4 inch
$4,600
Étude pour "Malou cavalière"
Francine Van Hove
Fine Art Drawings - 57 x 76 cm Fine Art Drawings - 22.4 x 29.9 inch
$4,600
Étude pour "Noir Café"
Francine Van Hove
Fine Art Drawings - 50 x 65 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 19.7 x 25.6 x 0.4 inch
Sold
Solaire
Francine Van Hove
Fine Art Drawings - 67.5 x 53 x 1 cm Fine Art Drawings - 26.6 x 20.9 x 0.4 inch
$2,805
Bain de soleil
Francine Van Hove
Painting - 73 x 50 x 2 cm Painting - 28.7 x 19.7 x 0.8 inch
$13,687
Francine Van Hove
France
Exhibitions in Paris
Déstructuralisme Figuratif
Substance Actuelle
From May 28, 2024 to June 7, 2024
Jean-Marie Oger
Sergio Ceccotti - Time of Mysteries
From March 26, 2024 to April 6, 2024
Galerie de Buci
LIVING GODS: Icelandic Brushstrokes on Classical Mythology
From April 4, 2024 to May 16, 2024
Galerie de Buci
SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS!
From February 14, 2024 to March 23, 2024
Galerie Wagner
Suspended Time
From January 23, 2024 to March 15, 2024
Gallery JAPANESQUE Paris
Kasumi
From February 7, 2024 to March 5, 2024
Galerie PERAHIA
20 ans L'Atlas et Tanc!
From April 2, 2024 to April 16, 2024
Galerie LOFT
Art For All
From November 16, 2023 to January 10, 2024
Galerie Thomé
Pastels +
From October 6, 2023 to November 7, 2023
Déstructuralisme Figuratif
SPECTRA - Exhibition by Hybrid's Crib
From May 31, 2023 to June 9, 2023