Guillaume Bresson's Renaissance-Infused Urban Violence at Nathalie Obadia

For his second solo show at Galerie Nathalie Obadia in Paris (31 May – 21 July 2012), Guillaume Bresson evolves from his signature grey parking-lot brawls and HLM housing-estate battles. The young painter, first noticed in the 2010 Dynasty exhibition at Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and Palais de Tokyo, now incorporates quotations from Old Master paintings into his digital collages, merging Renaissance drapery with contemporary sportswear. A large diptych—a new format for Bresson—shows a water tower being devoured by a mechanical excavator while stunned onlookers wear Renaissance robes. He begins some works by imagining a material's texture and sound, like a rustling K-way jacket. A series of three metaphysical paintings can be hung as a triptych, featuring faceless men in shorts and blue-and-white parkas with hands extended. Other landscapes are purely imaginary, painted in flatter, dreamlike washes. Small patches of sky appear between tree branches, each plant species rendered with childlike delight. Parking-lot scenes persist but in stranger atmospheres, such as three youths in tracksuits and beanies sitting on nothing near a car. Bresson continues to experiment with modular frames and panoramic formats, as in a painting showing a car in a garage beside an imaginary landscape with a water tower. His approach is influenced by cinematic montage.