Thaddaeus Ropac is pleased to present Grande Vacance, an exhibition of new paintings by Jean-Marc Bustamante at the gallery’s Paris Marais location. This new body of work marks a shift in the artist’s radical approach to image making. Departing from the transparency of his former paintings on Plexiglass, Bustamante has created fresco-like wall reliefs that reconsider the notion of landscape. 

Characterised by an unexpected sensuous presence, the white background of the new works is made of plaster and sand, on which the artist has drawn with a remarkable economy of means. Gestural strokes of pigmented ink give life to dynamic forms that oscillate between pure abstraction and a simplified representation of reality. By creating a new relationship between the wall and this hybrid object, Bustamante places the viewer in a limbo where it is not possible to fully decipher what he is looking at.