Ben Pastre
A Drink in Elliot Street, 2018
2018

About the Item

I was born in 1972 in Chartres. I live and work near Orleans. After having taken courses at the Beaux Arts in Orléans in drawing of live models, sculpture and painting, I decided to devote myself entirely to painting. Education ARTISTIC APPROACH: When the day fades, the truth appears in the light of the twilight. The whole being, invaded by the padded silence of the advancing night, sees his humanity bend under the awakening of his senses. He becomes again more instinctive, more animal, more true in the beauty of his solitude ... and the return to nature that the twilight imposes, then sends him back an exact image of himself. It is this transformation that Ben Pastre seizes, this lapse of time when the dog merges with the wolf, where tranquility struggles with worry. Darkness, like a wave, inevitably spreads over his canvas, gently erasing shapes and colors to make room for the immensity of the essential and the highlighting of those vital details that in broad daylight, the eye does not perceive. Ben Pastre's painting thus travels through the thickness of the canvas. It first emerges from the depths through large flat spots of colors. With the impatience of the diver in a hurry to catch his breath, the artist creates them in acrylic or with watercolor inks, thus limiting the drying time to progress more quickly to the surface. These flatterings also nourish her canvas with nuances that she will subtly enhance, this time in oil. She uses, for this purpose, a palette essentially composed of blacks and whites which, associated with ultramarine, yellow, vermilion, umber and sienna, natural or burnt, flourish in a beautiful variation. gray. The smoothness of the oil allows it to glide delicately towards the end of its work. She also brings a softness to her paintings that alleviates apprehension of the surrounding darkness, to the point of substituting a feeling of appeasement. The final addition of silver or golden peppers, symbolizing the reassuring presence of artificial lights, also reinforces this impression. The atmosphere that emanates from Ben Pastre's paintings encourages interior monologue. Caught up in the apparent darkness, the viewer finds himself immersed in a refined world dominated by silence. He is alone, but this solitude is benevolent and already augurs well for a new day. His contemplation is a breath, a pause during which he finds himself, or forgets himself, before setting off again. As much as the subject itself, the pictorial treatment has a lot to do with this impression, with its shades that darken, with its landmarks also, thanks to which the night remains always familiar. This world is that of the artist and his paintings are so many self-portraits in which his solitary, silent character shines through, and which perceives beauty even in its obscurity. Read Less Events 2017: artist residency from March 26 to May 10 in Longzhou, China 2016: artist residency from March 30 to May 2 in Tucheng, China.

Creator:

Ben Pastre (1972, French)

Creation Year:

2018

Dimensions:

Height: 60 in (152.4 cm)Width: 48 in (121.92 cm)Depth: 2 in (5.08 cm)

Medium:

Oil

Movement & Style:

Realist

Period:

21st Century