Innocents, Soft Porn or Murder? Katia Bourdarel, Le Printemps (The Spring)
Katia Bourdarel, Le Printemps (The Spring) (2021),
Oil on Canvas.
Katia Bourdarel, born in 1970 in Marseille, is a French visual artist, painter, sculptor and designer.
I am intrigued by this image. What do you see? How do you interpret it? Is there any visual information that would support your viewpoint?
What is going on in this image and what are your thoughts on what is happening and how do you respond to that? A painting imitating a photograph. We see an apparent naked figure in the landscape. It is a bright sunny day, evidence of the bright light casting strong shadows. The figure seems to be reclining on a moss-covered tree in the undergrowth laying on their back with knees bent. The left arm is crooked, and the right arm stretches out but is the arm resting flat or reaching out? The figure is camouflaged by the strong contrasts of shadow and overhanging branches and foliage. It initially seems to be a simple image but it defies interpretation. Is this a reclining nude female communing with nature, enjoying the dappled sunlight and solitude, an act of soft porn or is the figure a victim of crime, left for dead hidden in the undergrowth? (There could be a reference here to the very disturbing Marcel Duchamp’s gruesome assemblage, “Etant Donne’s.) Whichever scenario any attempt to define the situation suddenly becomes complex and uncertain. If you look carefully, in the cast shadow shapes on the left leg can be seen the hand and camera of the photographer or is this simply pareidolia, the phenomena of seeing meaningful recognisable images in random shapes?
Is the figure a man or a woman? Painted toenails would possibly indicate a female but issues of gender identity and roles could call that into question. Can you truly be sure you can see breasts? Is the figure even fully naked? Is the torso actually covered and not exposed? Is the figure dead? This would give a macabre, violent or sinister interpretation of the scene. Why reproduce a photograph as a painting at all? Of course, we make assumptions that the painter has faithfully reproduced the photograph but have they? Has the painting deliberately deviated from the photo, in what way and why? Indeed, Intriguing questions to an intriguing image. A macabre sinister image of a corpse, evidence of misogyny, a solitary figure communing with nature or a couple engaging in a soft porn shoot? I will leave you with that question but what does your choice say about you?
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