Welcome to the world of artist Marc Chalmé. Actually, it might be more appropriate to say: Welcome to the hour. Why? Because it's the particular time of day that makes the artist's paintings so intriguing. For the most part, Marc's paintings are set in the moment just before the sun rises – an in-between time when the mystery of the dark gives way to the certainty of the day.
It takes great skill to memorialise the inky skies and long shadows of dusk in paint. Marc does so effortlessly. In this new collection for the Catto, he reveals his craft again. Works such as Purple Sky and Shimmerings depict deserted streets illuminated by street lights and the faint glow of the slowly rising sun. The effect is eerie. It's meant to be. In other works, Marc dials up the disquiet. One features a shop bearing the name Dream Theory – a major hint that the real setting for these scenes might be the deep subconscious.
And Marc goes even deeper into the realm of the surreal in paintings such as Into The Shell and Parks. Here he returns to one of his favourite motifs: a giant orb floating in space. No explanation is given. The spheres just hover incongruously, maybe even a little ominously. The orb also appears in Waters and Dreams, one of the many works in which Marc switches his focus to interior spaces. But again, nothing is straightforward here. Are we inside or out? There's a similar ambiguity in Our Realities, where the model cathedral inside the room mimics exactly the one outside.
All of Marc's signature ideas come together in the focal point of this new show: an installation he calls: The Soul Is Organic. It comprises three paintings featuring respectively a floating orb, a forest at dusk and an empty room, which nature is clearly reclaiming. The installation is completed by a sculpture of an angel that references elements in the three paintings.
The parallel universe that we see in Marc's works springs entirely from the artist's imagination – and from the skill cultivated over nearly four decades as a professional painter. Marc was born in 1969 in Lorient in Brittany, and studied art history in Nantes and Rennes, then later with the acclaimed artist Georges Pichon. He hosted his first solo exhibition in 2005. Since then he has shown in galleries across Europe, New York and Boston to great acclaim. His first ever UK show came in 2023 at the Catto. It’s fantastic to welcome him back.
