As the Covid-19 pandemic set in globally, parks took on a new resonance. These spaces, once taken for granted, became symbolic of our attenuated freedom. Citizens gathered on grassy knolls, worshipping at the altar of fresh air. Life imitated Georges Seurat's famed pointillist painting ‘A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte’ (1884–86); in Chicago two residents used photoshop to empty that painting of figures, creating an image of lockdown.

‘A Sunday Afternoon…’ is a vision of extreme aesthetic control. Psychoanalysis would stipulate however, that order is diametrically dependent upon chaos – a tension that underpinned lockdown. As rules were enforced, an appetite for unruliness percolated. Seurat's utopic park was brought into new, strained light. What happens when the sun sets in La Grande Jatte? 

Philippe Le Miere’s take on ‘A Sunday Afternoon…’ plays with its undulating reception. He reduces the image to an impression of an impression. The viewer recognises it not from Le Miere’s faithfulness, but from memory. In the distending space between a masterpiece’s creation and the present, its nuances blur; it becomes a cipher for the viewer’s own experiences.

Le Miere is inspired by the originality that comes from re-imagining something familiar. According to postmodernism however, originality is a bygone myth; perhaps however, it lives on in the variances of mutation. As it hurtles through art history changing at the hands of artists, brands and activists, ‘A Sunday Afternoon…’ invariably becomes a shadow of the original, a ghost turned nostalgic by a pandemic. Under Le Miere it refracts again, this time into a scattering of painted droplets. What do you see on the water’s surface?

For collectors of pop art, impressionism and landscapes with a twist, take a stroll through this postmodern park.
 

Philippe LE MIERE (1975 - )
'after Georges Seurat A Sunday on La Grande Jatte' 2021
acrylic on canvas
Image Size: 38 x 51 cm
Dimensions: 38 x 51 cm
Signed: Signed lower right Le Miere, inscribed verso Philippe Le Miere, title and date
Comes with Letter of Provenance
Work of art comes unframed to allow for safe and economical shipping. Contact us if you would like to arrange for this to be professionally framed.
Condition:As New
© The Artist or Assignee