Practice:
Cameroonian artist Marc Padeu explores contemporary domesticity and family life while borrowing color and compositional techniques from Baroque art, renaissance iconography and Old Master paintings. His paintings mirror family photographs, capturing snapshots of conversations and interactions. They hold within them motion and intimacy as well as a powerful exuberance.

Description:
• use of color is characteristically articulate and bold, combining vibrancy and subtlety to create a visually stimulating scene of quotidian leisure
• borrowing from art history in his depiction of a picnic the viewer is reminded of French impressionist paintings of outdoor gatherings. In Padeu’s works however there is a disorientating quality to the scene.
• ground covered in dead leaves identifying the season as autumn and the couple’s clothes and blanket are given an unreal silky texture
• Padeu’s mastery in rendering color and texture on the canvass allows him to create textures that contain a soft vibrancy, mirroring the familiarity and joy that can coexist within the family sphere.

Influences:
• Baroque art, renaissance iconography and Old Master paintings
• French impressionist paintings of outdoor gatherings
• family snapshots. framing of the scene is particularly photographic, we see the scene from above, as if standing above the couple to take a photo of them