"I DRIVE THE VIEWER TO INTRUDE INTO THE PRIVACY OF THIS ARTIFICIAL WORLD."

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In his very Hollywood settings, Marius Messinese creates an environment that is both synthetic and realistic, halfway between seduction and intrigue. The idyllic scenes of gardens, swimming pools and magazine interiors are inhabited by objects that introduce an ambiguous narrative. The omnipresent contrast supports this tension: textured areas are opposed to flat surfaces, clear colors to shaded parts, the rectitude of the architecture to the vegetal bubbling. The planes are superimposed in a sometimes incongruous cutting, enhancing the notions of space and solitude.

Marius Messinese works to make the emptiness and silence palpable. The objects, placed here and there, become simple "clues" of the human presence, thus underlining its obvious absence.

One obviously thinks of David Hockney in his Californian period of the 60's, but the painter summons many other influences of Pop Art, such as Ed Ruscha, Allan D'Arcangelo, Richard Prince, Jonas Wood or Nathalie du Pasquier. His intriguing atmospheres recall the scenes of Edward Hopper and Giorgio de Chirico, as well as the movies of David Lynch. Finally, we note the major influence of the Californian modernist architects of the 30s and 40s such as John Lautner, Craig Ellwood, Albert Frey or Richard Neutra.

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At the crossroads of these influences, Marius Messinese develops a restrained figuration which, despite the Californian theme and the acidulous palette, tends towards a certain simplicity. The narrative, diffuse, just suggested, and the subjacent dramaturgy that follows, places the spectator in a position of expectation and makes him say that the scene is too banal, too calm to be quite normal.

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The veneer peels away to give way to intimate drama. "Behind all this appearance, there is undoubtedly suffering, solitude."