F resh from a string of critically acclaimed exhibitions, including New York’s Frick collects ion and the Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, Nicolas Party has cemented his place amongst the most exciting contemporary artists working today. A captivating example of Party’s masterful investigation of colour, material and art history, Still Life invigorates the traditional still life genre with its neo-surrealist depiction of ten, stalked organic forms. Shaded into an enticing sculptural presence with the artist’s acclaimed use of pastel, these stylised forms and plump, curvaceous shapes radiate in shades of fiery red, purple, mauve, yellow and brown. Directing his idiosyncratic choice of medium towards these uncanny depictions, the rhythmic, conical and curvilinear shapes of Still Life are almost anthropomorphic in their staging atop a pale orange surface against an Yves Klein blue backdrop. Executed on an expansive scale, Still Life was exhibited at the artist’s first solo exhibition with Karma in 2017, its colourful, architectural forms at once playful, mysterious and instantly recognisable.

Weaving together art-historical references, from the allegorical intensity of 16th and 17th century vanitas painting to the austerity of Giorgio Morandi’s still lifes, the present work’s architectural shapes and textured use of colour imbue a sense of dynamism that contrasts with the static conventions of the genre. In Still Life, Party situates the composition in a typically enigmatic milieu - the various shaped objects sit against an entirely flat background, completely devoid of any context, depth, or perspective. Drawing the viewer into this ambiguous space, Party’s choice of subject imbues the work with an enigmatic and symbolic resonance. The pumpkin, a symbol of abundance, prosperity and good fortune, is associated with the harvest season, and is a rare subject to appear in the artist’s compositions. Similarly, the pear, symbolising immortality to the Chinese, abundance to the Greeks and Roman, and Christ’s love in Renaissance religious paintings, was a motif frequently used by Flemish vanitas painters of the Renaissance. Imbuing each object with an animated sense of individual character, an effect emphasised by the magnified scale of the present work, “his paintings of fruit and forests anthropomorphize their subjects, which are visibly susceptible to the abuses of t.mes .” (Annie Godfrey Larmon, “Nicolas Party”, Artforum, December 2017). 

Memento mori and the inevitability of the passage of t.mes are concepts embedded in the genre, with each object seemingly suspended in t.mes , unable to rot yet reminding the viewer of this inevitability. This liminal space is described by the artist as “When you look at an artwork from the past, you feel that t.mes becomes much more elastic. t.mes and history become a “zone” where you can travel” (Nicolas Party, quoted in R. Vitorelli, ibid). Capturing a sense of artificiality and captivating illusion distilled from the genre of still life, the theatrical stillness of the present work stands outside of t.mes and space. Engaging in a riveting dialogue with art history, Still Life is at once vividly rendered and deeply mysterious, distilling the suspense and contradiction embedded in the genre in capturing on canvas that which cannot be still. Performing a tense, suspended dance with reality, the present work embodies the essence of ‘still life’; “Something alive, but with no movement” (Nicolas Party, quoted in R. Vitorelli, “Interview Nicolas Party,” Spike Art Magazine, no. 44, Summer 2015).

Setting a stage upon which his objects sit at the centre, like performers atop a stage, Party’s attention to composition is indebted to Giorgio Morandi. Foregoing the austere renderings of his predecessor, Party’s saturated use of fantastical jewel tones and theatrical application produces an effect that feels vividly contemporary. Often associated with softness and femininity, pastel has traditionally been used to conjure evanescent, saturated effects of light and colour: take Degas’ ballet dancers or the floral displays of Odilon Redon. In Party’s hands, the medium becomes graphic, well-defined and sculptural. Deeply pigmented and possessing a seductive corporeality, the provocative postures of the ten stylised objects are exaggerated by the artist’s use of shade and volume, accentuating their sensuous lines. Nestled amongst the upright figures of the rotund and curvaceous gourds lie suggestively outstretched objects, a surrealist reimaging of the art-historic reclining nude. This visceral sensuality is in tacit communion with the artist's chosen medium, the infamously volatile and challenging pigment imparting a physically to the present work. Favouring pastel for its immediacy and spontaneity, Party employs the medium as a painter as opposed to a draughtsman, massaging the pigment between his fingers to model forms into three-dimensional relief. As the artist describes, “I love pastels so much. I came to them because at one point I was doing oils, and my main problem was that I couldn’t stop editing the painting. Oils allow you to endlessly retouch.” (Nicolas Party, quoted in T. Loos, “Artist Nicolas Party Revives the Language of Pastel”, Cultured Magazine, 17 March 2019).

Exemplifying the unique qualities afforded by the softness of pastel and the precision with which the artist employs the medium, Still Life is an arresting and seductive work from Nicolas Party’s highly acclaimed oeuvre. In dialogue with the art-historical binaries of representation and abstraction, the present work exists in the tantalising liminal space between the real and the imagined, the past and the present, encapsulating what the artist describes as art’s capacity to “allow humans to feel t.mes very differently from how our body tells us to feel it. Nature always reminds us that our body will disappear soon; that life is a very brief moment. This is not the case in a still life” (Nicolas Party, quoted in R. Vitorelli, ibid.).

尼 古拉斯・帕蒂在現今令人趨之若驁的當代藝術家中穩佔一席之位，不久前他的作品才於一系列廣受好評的展覽展出，其中包括紐約弗里克收藏館和巴登巴登的弗列德・布爾達博物館。本作是展現帕蒂曾深入研究色彩、物料和藝術史的迷人典例，他透過以新超現實主義方式描繪十件連莖的有機形體，為傳統靜物畫注入俏皮生機。帕蒂運用粉彩的獨特畫法備受讚譽，他以火紅、深紫、淡紫、亮黄、褐色等色彩塑造線條圓潤的飽滿造型，營造細膩誘人的鬆軟質感。除媒介選材極不尋常之外，在克萊因藍背景的映襯下，堆疊在淡橙色平面上的圓錐體和曲面形狀充滿韻律感，幾乎就像擬人化一樣活力動人。本作尺幅宏大，2017年於Karma畫廊為帕蒂舉行的首場個展展出，畫面色彩豐富，造型趣致鮮明卻神秘，讓人一眼認出是帕蒂的手筆。

從寓意豐富的十六至十七世紀虛空派繪畫到喬治・莫蘭迪一系列質樸無華的靜物畫，本作藴含對藝術史上不同作品的指涉，畫中物件前後堆疊，以色彩製造獨特肌理，注入與傳統靜態的靜物畫形成鮮明對比的澎湃活力。本作中帕蒂營造了典型的神秘環境——不同形狀的物件放置在扁平的背景前，物件之間完全看不出脈絡，也移除了畫面的深度和透視。帕蒂選擇的靜物讓畫面氣氛耐人尋味，卻又能引起興符號相關的共鳴，引領觀者視點進入暧昧不明的空間。南瓜象徵富饒、繁盛和好運，令人聯想到豐收季節，屬於較少出現在帕蒂畫作的主題。梨子在各種文化也有不同意義，中國人認為梨子代表永生，希臘人和羅馬人認為梨子代表豐足，文藝復興時期的宗教繪畫會以梨子象徵基督的愛，同屬文藝復興時期的佛蘭芒地區虛空派畫家也經常以梨子入畫。帕蒂總在作品中為每個物件注入活潑個性，本作的宏大尺幅讓物件的個性更為突出，正如作家安妮・戈弗雷・拉蒙所言：「他描繪水果和森林的畫作會用擬人化處理主題，顯然這些主題很容易被時間濫用」（摘自安妮・戈弗雷・拉蒙，〈尼古拉斯・帕蒂〉，《Artforum》，2017年12月）。

虛空派靜物畫標榜「勿忘你終有一死」和時間必會流逝的概念，畫中每個物件都彷彿凝結在時間中，不會腐朽，卻一直提醒觀者無人可以阻止死亡和時間流逝。帕蒂如此形容這種閾限空間：「當你觀賞以往的藝術品時，會感覺時間變得更有彈性，時間和歷史都變成你可以穿梭其中的『區域』」（引述尼古拉斯・帕蒂，載於R・維托雷利，同前註）。本作的靜態氣息極富戲劇性，不受時間和空間影響，畫面帶出一種人為操縱的感覺，展現精煉自靜物畫的視錯覺。本作是一場與藝術史交流的對話，引人入勝，畫面生動鮮明，卻神秘莫測，帕蒂以畫布捕捉的是無法靜止的事物，練就出懸念和矛盾等靜物畫所蘊含的特質。本作體現了「靜物畫」的精髓，就像與現實一起進行令人緊張的舞蹈表演，卻永遠靜止在某個時刻，正如帕蒂所說「有生命之物，只是沒有運動」（摘自尼古拉斯・帕蒂，〈專訪尼古拉斯・帕蒂〉，R・維托雷利，《SPIKE》藝術雜誌，第44期，2015年夏）。

帕蒂參考了喬治・莫蘭迪的作品，將畫面設置成舞台，再像安排表演者上台一樣，將物件佈置於構圖的中心。然而，他沒有跟隨莫蘭迪使用樸素的灰系色調，反而運用鮮豔的寶石色調，拼湊對比強烈的色彩，營造生機勃勃的當代感。粉彩一般讓人聯想到溫柔和與女性相關的特質，傳統上會用於呈現容易消散、柔和明亮的光線和色彩，例如德加的粉彩畫《芭蕾舞者》和歐迪隆・魯東的花卉靜物。粉彩在帕蒂手中也可以變成表達震撼力的媒介，展現清晰的輪廓和豐厚的質感。本作中十件造型獨特的蔬果色澤濃豔，豐腴誘人，明亮的用色和碩大的體積讓蔬果的姿態更加誇張，圓潤的線條更加突出。蔬果線條飽滿優美，打直擺放的梨子前橫放著向前伸的長形梨子，這是帕蒂以超現實主義的手法，重新想像藝術史上《斜躺裸女》的經典型象。蔬果的厚實肉感也默默暗合帕蒂選用的媒介，眾所周知粉彩是極不穩定的顏料，用起來甚具挑戰性，卻在本作中賦予物件與眾不同的質感。帕蒂愛以粉彩創作，偏好粉彩可以即時隨心運用的特性，讓他自覺是畫家而非繪圖員，他會用手指揉捏顏料，塑造立體的浮雕效果。正如帕蒂表示：「我非常喜愛粉彩，我選擇以粉彩為繪畫媒介，因為以前我會用油彩創作，當時的主要問題是我會一直反覆修改畫作，油彩讓你可以不停補色修改」（摘自尼古拉斯・帕蒂，〈藝術家尼古拉斯・帕蒂讓粉彩再次復興〉，T・路斯，《Cultured Magazine》，2019年3月17日）。

尼古拉斯・帕蒂的作品廣受讚譽，本作是其中一件迷人傑作，體現柔和的粉彩營造的獨特肌理，將他精準運用粉彩的精湛技法表露無遺。在藝術史上具象表現與抽象表現的對立中，本作卻處於真實與想像、過去與現在之間令人興奮的閾限空間，概括了帕蒂所認為藝術可以「讓人以有別於由身體感受時間的方式去體會時間，大自然總是提醒我們肉身很快就會消逝，生命是非常短促，但靜物畫裡的情況卻完全不同」（摘自尼古拉斯・帕蒂，R・維托雷利，同前註）。