CAMOUFLAGE, PORTRAIT OF ERIC FISCHL
French painter Isabelle Bonzom has been in correspondence with the American artist Eric Fischl since 2009. She has also painted him in her series entitled « Camouflage ». Both artists have written on each other’s work.
« In her « Camouflage » series, Isabelle Bonzom explores and challenges the concept of portrait. Her paintings of fellow artist Eric Fischl, in which we often discern her own shadow in the pond of the American artist’s garden, are a meditation on the dialogue that the two painters have in their correspondence. In an interplay of the notions of the painter and the painted, she revisits the theme of painters painting colleagues as she moves it outside the studio and removes any depiction of actual faces and the so called traditional implements of a painter, » says art critic, Pierre Sterckx.
Indeed, as a wink, Isabelle Bonzom moves the subject out of the initial context (the studio), placing her colleague near a pool which is a recurrent set in Eric Fischl's oeuvre.
Isabelle Bonzom is the author of a long conversation with Eric Fischl. Read excerpts of this talk published in May 2009 by the website Culture&Cie. The first part of the conversation is entitled The breath and the touch, followed with a second part which deals with shadows in "Ten Breaths". She has also written an essay about the Ten Breaths, Eric Fischl's installation: “Ten Breaths,” a place for experiment and a return to the origins
Eric Fischl also wrote an essay on Isabelle Bonzom's painting, "Entre nous", published in the catalogue "Traverses"
The American writer, Kathy Borrus, wrote an article about Isabelle Bonzom's solo show Traverses 2014, at the Marie-Claude Duchosal gallery, in Paris where several versions of the Fischl's portraits have been shown.
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American writer, Kathy Borrus writes :
" Relationships between our interior life and the exterior crossover, as seen in the hazy portraits (one of which I own) of artist Eric Fischl gazing down at the pond in front of him. Everything is open. What is he pondering as he seems to see beneath the surface ripples of water? And, as the viewer, are we witness to our own traverses through life?
Decide for yourself: Don’t miss Bonzom’s exquisite portraits and landscapes bursting with color, light, and energy yet simultaneously with calm.
Read Eric Fischl’s poetic essay—an imaginary conversation—on Isabelle Bonzom’s painting, "Entre nous", published in the catalog "Traverses". "
Eric Fischl's website: www.ericfischl.com
