Solo show: Jacqueline Devreux - Family Dreams (over)

	Jacqueline Devreux

Galerie Martin Mertens Galerie Martin Mertens Linienstraße 148 10115 Berlin Germany (city map) Send E-mail tel +49 (0)30 - 440 433 50 www.martinmertens.com

With "Family Dreams" we will present for the first time in Berlin the painter Jacqueline Devreux from Brussels. The central subject of her work has been for several years now the human figure, respectively the portrait and in particular children's portraits. Therewith the artist ties in with a long tradition in painting, which climaxed for example in artists like Joshua Reynolds in 18th century England.

However, Jacqueline Devreux has developed the subject further in her own particular manner. To some extend the haunting glance and the concentration of the person depicted, as well as Devreux' masterly technique recall paintings by Jan Vermeer, such as "Girl with pearl earring" or "Lady writing a letter". Above all this association is provoked by the impression of timelessness and the great quietness, the paintings create. Thus the people portrayed seem, as if they were from another time, although it is often the artist herself or her daughter. Dissolving in a Sfumato of slightly blurred or cloudy colour structures they appear in front of undefined backgrounds respectively image spaces. Nothing distracts the beholder's attention from the depicted person. The works' colours are rather diminished and reduced to only a few shades. Devreux drives this so far that some works seem almost washed-out. This gives them the appearance of historic photography.

The reduction is developed the furthest in Devreux' big watercolour drawings on paper, in which she restrains the shades to black and white and grey.

Opening:
Friday, 02.09.2011, 6 - 9 pm