Showcasing alongside Asia Now, from the 21-24th October is the next edition of the International Contemporary Art Fair (FIAC). First appearing in 1974, over the years this prestigious event has made its home all over Paris. With the original Salon taking place in the old Bastille station, the event moved to the Grand Palais before being installed for several years in the luminous Porte de Versailles exhibition space. This year, FIAC can be found once again at The Grand Palais, bringing together over 200 exhibitors, including many of the most influential and innovative contemporary artists and designers from around the world.
To celebrate these modern masters, and to highlight our new Invest In, Acclaimed and Bestseller artist badges, SINGULART’s latest auction, Painting Now: Celebrating FIAC Art Week, will exclusively feature our top-performing and globally recognized contemporary artists.
To let you get to know our carefully selected artists and their paintings a little better, we’ve taken a deep-dive into the works of Casey McKee, Anne Brenner, and Dourone. Learn about their techniques, discover their messages, and get inspired!
Casey McKee’s strength as a contemporary artist arises from his unique perspective and spicy wit. Intrigued by hybridity, not only does he overlay photography with oil painting, but in each of his artworks one element spars with the next. In this painting, McKee’s alludes to the historic tradition of Western Portraiture. With his subject’s head adorned with an ornate headdress, her positioning in a classic three-quarter profile, and her title and austere gaze, The Marchioness’s Knappa perfectly reflects McKee’s interest in portrait painting of the nobility during the 16th-18th centuries.
And yet, whilst channeling the solemnity of this genre, at the same time, McKee strikes a ridiculous note in his artwork. The woman in the painting, in reality, is not a Marchioness, but a friend of the artist’s, photographed 6 years ago while the two were living in Shanghai. Furthermore, her Knappa is no prized headdress, but is the name of the Ikea lamp that sits atop her head. This contradiction between the seriousness of the portrait and the fact that it is a cheap Ikea lamp on her head, not an expensive coronet creates a pleasing tension, as McKee pokes fun at the 0.1%, who feel that they are entitled to own vast quantities of the planet’s wealth and resources.
The painting is in fact full of these pleasing juxtapositions. The foregrounded portrait, which retains the original photograph’s detailing, is balanced by the subtly added landscape and hazy backdrop. Likewise, the black and white color-palette reserved for the portrait strikingly differs from the ethereal rainbow mist surrounding the figure. With these clever contrast, McKee enhances his philosophical critique of the dichotomy of wealth distribution, all whilst perfectly demonstrating his ‘one part flippant, one part earnest, two parts satire’ style.
