The Painter (1991)

In the series ‘The Painter’ (1991) too, Fonteyne focuses sharply on the body. In this instance it is the body of a painter in full swing. The images offer no clear analysis of the way the painter systematically fills the empty canvas. Instead they analyse the painterly act in a series of physically aggressive postures. The painter appears to be a dancer performing a choreographic score, a mobile entity who is entangled in an impossible duet with his own shadow. Before the painter touches the canvas, there is already that dark, threatening shadow preceding him to occupy the canvas. Or in reverse, every time the painter retreats or prepares for the next ‘attack’, his shadow lingers on the canvas. The image the painter leaves in his work is, literally, a shadow of his own physicality. Could the same apply to these photographic images?

Steven Humblet

Sequence of 9 photographs 37x66cm framed.Hand painted silver emulsion on waterford color paper Ed 2.