October 14 to November 14, 2010
Opening on Thursday October 14, 6pm-9pm

Galerie Orange is proud to present the recent work by international renowned painter Deon Venter. Back in Montreal after a five year hiatus, the artist will unveil a new series of paintings for the first time at Galerie Orange. Deon Venter's work is defined by both the predominant socio-political content and traditional pictoral iconography, where both become inseparable from the contemporary idioms that caracterizes and at the same time distances itself from his work. Resulting in an audacious artistic corpus which invites a multitude of interpretations and meanings. Venter rather avoids imposing an overpowering narrative to give way to free observation and reading of his work.

Similarly, Venter awakens concepts such as belonging and nationalism through the illustration of tragic current events (Flight 182, Missing, Courtroom). Created in series, his works exploit controversial subjects covered and debated by the media, reproduced on linen canvases in a variation of heavy impasto, maskings and pastel colors.

In this present series, Venter's Olympia paintings refer to Manet's Olympia, Goya's La Maya des Nuda, Ingres La Grande Odalisque, Titian's Venus of Urbino, as well as the painting which influenced these artists – Georgioni's Sleeping Venus. As described by the art dealer Robin Relph (Robin Relph Contemporary, Zurich), Venter's figurative work is also in dialogue with, and extends the figurative concepts of artists as diverse as Soutine, Picasso, de Kooning and Lucian Freud. To quote Willem de Kooning – "Flesh is the reason why oil paint was invented."

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Information: (514) 396-6670 / info@galerieorange.com
www.galerieorange.com