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4/6/2007

Thierry Breton

Splashlight Studios, New York

Sculpture and Painting

Included in the exhibition at Splashlight Studios are Breton's sculpture series. The Spirit of the Letters, a series of 26 sculptures inspired by the letters of the roman alphabet. "Choosing to work from a rigid line alphabet was a challenging proposition. This work relates strongly to the circus, with acrobats, gymnasts, and tight-rope-walkers," explains Breton. "Although conceived as a whole, each of the series comes alive in its own right. It was fun taking something as abstract as a letter and giving it a human shape. But then, is a letter ever an abstraction?" *The Two Lovable Maidens*, inspired the poem "The Two Good Sisters" by Charles Baudelaire from his work *The Flowers of Evil*. *The Ophiolâters (*OPHIOLATRY : n.f. cult , adoration of snakes), a series of five bronzes, which Breton says "hints at all things hiding behind the word love . . . power plays in a couple . . . possession of the other under the pretext of love." *The Bacchanates*, a series of seven bronzes with plaster originals based upon the women who followed Bacchus, screaming, singing, and dancing, often in a drunken state. Breton notes that in this series he worked "on the theme of drunken dance, on the energy of movement from which leap, bound gyration, and pirouette are born. These are silhouettes, ideograms almost , a form of writing."

Breton's recent painting series are also featured. The Seven Wives of Bluebeard, a series of seven painting closely related in subject matter to his sculpture series Two Lovable Maidens, inspired by the moment when Bluebeard's seventh wife forbidden to open a barred door, does so nevertheless, suspecting what will happen to her. Breton notes, "the thrill springs from what is forbidden and what she dares not imagine. All seven wives are in a delicate balance between 'la grande mort' and 'la petite mort,' the seventh more than the others." The Danaes, a series of ten large format paintings (approximately 63x39 inches) as well as small early sketches (8x8 inches, watercolor and gouache) that formed the basis of the series. Breton says that he was inspired by the thought that when "Zeus impregnated Danaë in the guise of a golden rain wasn't he being a painter? Gold is the light that gives life to everything."

Thierry Breton* was born in 1965 in Dakar, Senegal, and grew up first in Africa then in Martinique, going to Paris to study veterinary medicine. It was there in 1985 that he first came in contact with sculpture at the studio of a pupil of Zadkine's, Noor Zadé Brenner, and he has worked with clay ever since, and showed twice at Zadkine's studio in 1985 and 1990. From then on he has devoted all his time to sculpture, showing his work in a series of exhibitions in various Parisian galleries, where he has continued to exhibit over the years (Peinture-Fraîche G*a*llery - rue de Bourgogne, Cathay Gallery - rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Claudine Legrand Gallery- rue de Seine). Breton has also shown in Barcelona, Milan, and Deauville in Europe, and in Hudson, New York, and New York City in the United States. Recently he has shown in Montpellier, France, at the Alma Gallery, in Gstaad, Switzerland at the Nabokov Gallery, and in Paris at Madame Cariou's. He showed his *Danaës* painting series in Rouen, France, in May 2006 and in Vichy, France, in July of the same year. His most recent series of bronze sculptures *The Spirit of the Letters* was shown in Paris in June 2006. The first of the paintings from the series *Seven Wives of Bluebeard* was selected by the Salon International de Montrouge (Paris) in 2006 and the Salon des Jeunes Créateurs in Vichy, France. Thierry Breton also gives art classes.

Opening june 5, 2007

Splashlight Studios
529-535 West 35th Street - New York

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