ATM GALLERY NYC

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

 ALEXIS RALAIVAO 

October 8–November 4, 2020

 ATM Gallery NYC is pleased to announce the very first solo exhibition of work by Alexis Ralaivao, on view October 8 through November 4, 2020.

 Ralaivao was born in Rennes, France, in 1991, where he still lives and works. 

 As the son of a Madagascan father and a French mother, Ralaivao makes his mixed ethnicity central to his practice as a painter: he focuses exclusively on representations of African, mixed-race, and other nonwhite residents of France. Unlike in the United States, where African American artists such as Kerry James Marshall, Kehinde Wiley, or Kara Walker are represented by established galleries and have works in prestigious museum collections, Black painters are mostly absent in the French art world. Ralaivao’s explicit objective is to break this barrier and establish himself as one of the first Afro-French painters to be included in leading art museum collections in his home country.

While African American and Afro British artists have thus far dominated the discourse around the representation of Black people by Black people, Ralaivao adds a distinctly French perspective that is refined, sensual, and understated. The favorite painters he cites include historical and contemporary masters such as Gerard van Honthorst and John Currin, who likewise take a relatively conservative approach. Rembrandt, especially his self-portraits, inspired Ralaivao take up painting after having studied languages and communication (but never any classes in art) at the university in Rennes. Among younger Black contemporary artists, Britain’s Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, with her tender portraits of fictitious Black individuals, is a strong influence.

 For this exhibition, Ralaivao presents fourteen new oil paintings, both large and small scale, made in 2020 in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and, more importantly, the Black Lives Matter protests. However, to say that the artist’s work is explicitly political would not be accurate. His is more a practice of observation of subtle, intimate, and personal moments. As a group, the paintings speak of the artist’s appreciation for human beings. Like their subjects, they are affectionate, subtle, delicate, and present everyday situations, often in sparse or minimal surroundings. Muted tones—beige, light blue, brown, white, the occasional soft orange—dominate the color palette.

 The exhibited works fall into two distinct groups: portraits that depict a large part of the sitter’s figure and face, and others that reveal only fragments of a body. All of them are based on friends or self-portraits. La Promenade (The Walk, 2020) shows a woman with delicate facial features, wrapped in a fur, gazing effortlessly and comfortably into the distance, perhaps somewhere in the south of France, and clearly reveals Ralaivao’s fascination with Currin’s work. The torso of a woman in Belly Button (2020) exemplifies the focus on particular parts of the body, taking in this case a slightly quirky, humorous tone. Mauvais Sens (Wrong Side, 2020) shows the behind of a woman wearing her panties the wrong way around.