Pilar Corrias is pleased to present the first UK solo exhibition by Alexis Ralaivao. Titled Flirter avec l'abstrait, the exhibition brings together a new suite of paintings that push figuration to its limits, flirting with but never fully embracing abstraction.
Ralaivao draws on Old Master techniques, particularly those associated with 17th-century Dutch painting and its meticulous treatment of fabric and surface. For the first time in his practice, he works in vivid, saturated colour. The paintings depict tightly cropped images, sections of midriff or draperies that, through their isolation from the wider image, approach geometric abstraction. In these works, composition, texture and colour take precedence over narrative. The result is a series of bright, sensual studies that resist spectacle and instead invite sustained looking and a sense of emotional proximity.
