Etreinte, 2024

Ivan Messac  

Ivan Messac is a French painter and sculptor born in Caen in March 1948.

Although he is younger than the artists of the Narrative Figuration, Ivan Messac is associated to the movement and he is featured in the show Mythologies quotidiennes at the Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris, in 1977.

Ivan Messac takes part in numerous artistic events such as the Paris Biennial or Sigma in Bordeaux. He also produces sets and costumes for performances. His work is inspired by pop art, Italian futurism, Maïakovski but also by Jimi Hendrix and Hollywood icons.

After painting, sculpture becomes his favorite medium in which he works and experiments. He works in Carrara and creates his own personal style, starting from his first sculptures produced in 1983. Alain Monvoisin writes an article about his work in the Dictionnaire de la sculpture moderne et contemporaine (Dictionary of Modern and Contemporary Sculpture) published in November 2008.

The many public commissions he received allowed him to develop his practice. In 2000 he returns to painting, and he resumes the critical vision that he used to display in his youth works.

Since 2003, his work has been featured by various institutions dedicated to Narrative Figuration, such as the Dôle and Orléans Museums; in 2006 he had a solo show at the Laurent Strouk Gallery, entitled Adam & Eve.

One of these works is now a part of the FNAC (the French National Fund for Contemporary Art) collection. Messac plays with humor with the image of the first couple, displayed with a mastery of the color, of the movement and of the material. The weak woman and the easily influenced man are shown in this painting with looks and postures that remind us of the flamboyant star couples that often end up meeting tragic fates.