Artist :Jean-Marc Huss
Genre:Painting
Period: December 5 till December 29 Everyday, 10.00AM till 8.00PM
Location:Alila Ubud Gallery, Desa Melinggih Kelod, Payangan. Tel: 975963
For over two decades Jean-Marc Huss, a French artist resident in Thailand, has been painting images of the Buddha, often on a monumental scale. After traveling the hippie trail through India, Nepal and Bali Jean-Marc settled in Koh Samui in 1983, to run a coconut plantation. Nearby was a Buddhist monastery which he visited often, “drawn by the peace and silence, the heady aroma of incense and the sense of something mysterious and powerful in the atmosphere”. A monk in the monastery presented him with a statue of the Buddha, and it was this gift that started him on his on-going quest to capture different three-dimensional representations of the Buddha on canvas.
Jean-Marc was initially an untrained artist, but during a year long stay in Bali, prior to 1983, he encountered the work of the ex-pat German artist Walter Spies (1895-1942) and the ex-pat Belgian artist Jean Le Mayeur (1880-1958). “I was particularly inspired by Le Mayeur”, Jean-Marc says, “the light on his canvases is unreal”. Jean-Marc also admires the Dutch master Vermeer more than any other painter. Using these artists as his mentors Jean-Marc has been able to develop a photo-realistic oil painting technique that features his own distinctive use of light and shade.
All of the twelve paintings in Jean-Marc’s exhibition “Above & Beyond”, at the Alila Ubud Gallery, display their photo-realism heritage. Working from three-dimensional statues, or occasionally from photographs of stone relief carvings, these Buddha images are depicted in extreme close-up or sometimes cropped and positioned off-centre in the canvases, against stark, monochromatic backgrounds that throw the emphasis of the works onto the chosen Buddha. Jean-Marc pays particular attention to the individual quality of these Buddha images, their different postures and gestures as well as the materials from which they are made. One of the striking aspects of these paintings is Jean-Marc’s uncanny ability to render the various materials of each Buddha. Whether the Buddha is stone, bronze, ivory or gold, by using delicate, small brushstrokes, somewhat in a Pointillist style, Jean-Marc creates these various textures in an outstanding photo-realistic manner.
Many people the world over have been transfixed by the image of Buddha. The illuminated image of supreme bliss, infinite love, compassion and unshakable serenity. “When I paint”, Jean-Marc says, “I pray with my brush”. Sometimes, he feels, the paintings take over and he has no control of his hands. Jean-Marc’s paintings can take on a life of their own, serving as an aid to meditation as well as being beautiful art objects. Many people sense in the peaceful, dignified Buddha faces not only a profound beauty but also a spiritual presence. Many people can also be transfixed by a room full of images of Jesus Christ or the Virgin Mary or by images of Vishnu. It just depends on who is your favorite deity and how you want to reach your own personal state of Nirvana. Jean-Marc presents a very major and very personal exhibition that demands a very personal response from its audience.
