Frédéric Léglise: “Who’s Afraid of Pink”

Frédéric Léglise, Anaïs, 2006, oil and lacquer on canvas, 35” x 45.5”

Shadows of Milk and Blood

Frédéric Léglise paints women and self-portraits; an obsessional quest of self and other. The space his paintings occupy possess a strange liminal quality – they seem to float in between the visible and invisible; there is something remote, otherworldly and alien about them, suspended in deep white, gravity-free, floating, fluid and nearly formless, a visual presence emerging onto the surface from an immaterial, absent world belonging to the not-so-distant future.

The most peculiar quality in his piantings of the female form is how little form he gives them — stripped of skin, they seem to have no bones or muscles. It suggests that he wants to reveal to us what’s underneath.

By Deborah Zafman, Ph.D.

Exhibition catalog published by galerie deborah zafman, 2006