iLafayette Anticipations - Fondation Galeries Lafayette · Le Marais
The Japanese painter's first major institutional solo show in France, around fifty drawings and large-scale paintings of landscapes inhabited by human and animal figures, with the sea as a recurring motif.
Preview: written before the show opened
You walk into the first room on the first floor and a painting of a cement factory, hemmed in by water and mountains, hangs among portraits of cats and dogs that all look back at you "with an air of surprise". The woman in the large portrait gaze has a cat and a dog fading into her right cheek.
This is Yu Nishimura's first institutional solo show in France: about fifty drawings and paintings from the last ten years, some made for it, in oil and tempera blurred and layered so that figures seem to move between frames. It runs over two floors, from portraits to an underwater room and evening beaches, and ends on new large canvases seen from an insect in a field of flowers and a bird above a city.
Entry is free, Wednesday to Sunday, 11am to 7pm. Free guided tours, booked ahead, run Wednesday to Friday at 5pm; the weekend 5pm tours add scents made for the show by Iris et Morphée.
factory and the pet portraits
In the first room, a cement works flanked by water and mountains (2018) hangs with portraits of cats and dogs, all staring back in surprise.
gaze
A large portrait of a woman deep in thought, with a cat and a dog superimposed on her right cheek, almost faded, like a memory.
low tide
A crouching figure on a sandy beach strewn with pebbles, eyes closed, on a canvas almost two metres tall.
midnight
On the second floor, a figure walks through a blue night beside a tree-lined lake, so misted that they seem to move through water.
The new large paintings
The closing room shows the landscape from an insect inside a field of flowers and from a bird above a vast city.
Free family programmes, booked ahead: a sensory walk through the show for ages 3 to 5 on Sundays at 11am, a Japanese kite-making workshop for ages 6 to 10 on Saturday afternoons, and baby sessions (3 to 24 months) on three Saturdays.