Cesar Piette
French artist César Piette's use of traditional techniques connects him to the history of figurative painting: monochromatic layers, perspective, light, composition, and very significant shading effects. Painted with an airbrush, his "hyperplastic" images include three-dimensional effects, intersecting with design, photography, and advertising. His subjects remain resolutely classical: a nude, a bird, a vanitas. Although he comes out of the practice of illustration and the world of comics and video games, Piette rejects the influence of digital imagery and conceives of his work as a construction game. Here, the artificial object is emphasized and the playful nature of the toy is taken seriously and combined with art historical references.
Hi Cesar, can you tell us what is your background and How and when did you first start to paint?
I live in the south of France but I was born in the north near the border with Belgium. I did first a master of applied arts and started to work directly in freelance for various clients and I did things like medical illustrations, comic books and video games’ concept art during 6 years. The last project led me to a quasi burn-out, I had a huge doubt on what I was doing. Painting seemed to have a better potential to fulfill my aspirations. The only issue is that the approach of painting and illustration is quite different, so I had to study again and try to develop something simultaneously. I did a lot of infructuous attempts in many approaches and hardly looked for myself... Seven years after nothing had ever really happen. Neither the beginning of an original way to paint nor the beginning of a market. I was on the point to give up. If in my previous works I was trying to evacuate my background as an illustrator, I decided to just let it enter and try to deal with it by using some illustrators devices like 3d software and airbrush (something that I never did before but that I was aware of because people in my first school were using them). This meeting between my previous failed years (but useful at the end) and my newly assumed background drove me on the way.
What is your main source of inspiration? How do you select the characters in your paintings?
My work is fully directed towards the History of Painting, inspiration comes from there. For the moment I only paint very traditional/generic subjects like portraits, landscapes, still lives, nudes etc... and work with a reduced visual vocabulary. I deal with a very traditional medium with a very contemporary approach. Everything is rendered with a 3D software first.
What does your artwork represent?
It’s an attempt to pursue the tradition of Figurative art today. As I said I use really generic/ basic representations deeply linked to the history of Painting. I’m more interested in the subject as vehicle, than as an end in itself. I was also interested in turning what is ‘representable’ into an inorganic, artificial, postindustrial, plastic toy aspect with the help of the computer. How has your practice change over time? I’m not sure it has evolved really. It’s pretty much the same approach. I have
improved technically and I try to explore newer subjects even if they can still fit into the basic categories I’ve mentioned above.
What art do you most identify with? why?
I can’t say that I’m referencing a particular movement of art history. I’m interested in Figurative Art in general and all the variations that you could find until abstraction, but not abstraction itself, I guess. That’s where I am now. But I’m aware that the paintings can bring references like mannerism, surrealism or Pop art (especially in the clean, anti-subjective, cold approach to Painting).
Describe a real-life situation that inspired you?
My work is more about the how to paint than the what to paint. I want to be from my time without referencing too much daily life. I’m searching for something more timeless. But this is a border that can be porous.
What’s your strangest experience in your career?
Managing to get an exclusivity contract with Almine Rech gallery during coronavirus pandemic.
How does the city you are living and working influence you and the art you make?
It has influenced me in a way that it had absolutely no influence on me, I guess. I live in a less than 50000 inhabitants’ city, so there no contemporary art galleries, no serious artists, no artworld, shows... This is something I live completely alone. I mainly experience all this through the screen and books. More, as my work involves computer and a lot of time to complete, I’m there without being there. I have the feeling that I could live in Amazonia and produce the same work. Maybe I’m wrong.
What is your dream project?
Regarding the competition between artists, fashions, the speed to which things are changing today etc. I think if I can make a career, find an audience and work until the end, it will be a great thing. I think this is the main project I’m working on.
