Carole Benzaken, Magnolias (37), 2024
Galerie Nathalie Obadia is delighted to present Vertiges croisés, a two-part exhibition in Brussels that brings together young figurative painters and more established artists from the international scene. This new exhibition reveals the richness of a pictorial landscape driven by an ever-renewed creative energy.
On the first floor, paintings by Sacha Cambier de Montravel, Laslo Familari Roy, Daniel Fleur, Léo Kpodzro, Renske Linders, Clément Poplineau and Alexander Skats represent a new generation of contemporary figurative artists. Gathered together for the first time in Paris for the exhibition Guilty Pleasures, curated by Pierre El Khoury, these works explore the theme of guilty pleasures, where desire and transgression intertwine. Between lush imagery and overt sensuality, they probe the tensions of our time. Kitsch, with its excesses and artifices, invades the space not as a mere ornament, but as a critical reflection of a society saturated with images and contradictory desires.
On the second and third floors, the exhibition continues with a selection of artists represented by the gallery. Valérie Belin presents smooth, shiny - and almost icy - portraits that oscillate between spectral presence and artificial perfection. The made-up figures are adorned with colourful flowers, questioning the place of the body and appearance in contemporary society. These floral ornaments echo Caroles Benzaken's Magnolias (37) and Robert Kushner's Gladiolus. Games of transparency in laminated glass, garish colours and flashes of gold unfold at the heart of the exhibition.
Some of these works gradually dissolve figuration in favour of abstraction. While Wang Keping and Guillaume Leblon mould and sculpt the material to give rise to forms, Romana Londi, Victoria Palacios and Fiona Rae use the pictorial surface as a terrain for experimentation, where forms and words are transformed into free expression.
This exploration is echoed in the work of Shirley Jaffe and Viswanadhan, two major figures in contemporary abstraction. The American artist's silkscreens, produced in the 1990s, abandon gestural expressiveness in favour of clean-cut forms and a structuring use of white, which articulates the compositions while giving them visual breathing space. In his later works, Viswanadhan develops a style of painting in which colour - luminous and vibrant - becomes the vehicle for a wider quest: that of an experience of being, inviting reflection on existence and spirituality.
Through artists of different generations and cultural backgrounds, this constellation of works affirms the persistence of art as a space for research and continuous reinvention.
Sacha Cambier de Montravel's Il a neigé dans nos cœurs (2025) announces the artist's forthcoming solo exhibition at Galerie Nathalie Obadia Brussels, to be held from November 6, 2025 to January 10, 2026.
