Sleepers

The artist Juliette Lemontey, has shown her work in group and solo exhibitions

in San Francisco and all over Europe. Lemontey is always open to inspiration:

"everything I see feeds me," she says, influenced by a wide range of sources,

including Japanese woodblock prints, etching techniques, and the vibrantly

colored textiles of Asia and the Middle East.

Her large-scale paintings portray figures in various states of relâchement:

simultaneously relaxing, and, as Lemontey puts it, "slipping away, falling apart."

At first glance, the figures seem to be in repose, burrowed amid the waves of

striped and florid bedding, like a woman peacefully napping in a garden. Their

bodies curve sensually across the canvas, taking up most of the frame. But look

closer, and you see that these sleepers have a more complex story to tell: they

grip their pillows tightly, as if for protection; their hands are curled into tense

knots. They appear to be in a state of limbo. "Their bodies are here," says

Lemontey, "but their minds are elsewhere." They are at once vulnerable, prone,

and yet inaccessible, their thoughts turned inwards. There is a power in that.

Instead of using traditional canvas, Lemontey paints her figures on antique linen

sheets, salvaged from attics and flea markets across France. Like the old

masters, she mixes her paints herself, using pigment powders, turpentine, and

linseed oil, eschewing manufactured, pre-mixed tubes. A wash of coffee or

walnut ink, typically used in France to tint wood, stands in for the flesh of her

figures, sometimes taking on a mottled appearance in places where it pooled on

the canvas. Lemontey delights in the uncertainty of the process: "I like to keep

'accidents' in my work; I like to be surprised and to deal with the unexpected."

Jaime Gross, sans Francisco