Julian Semiao: Mythologies personnelles

 

At less than thirty years old, Julian Semiao paints a portrait of Parisian youth in all its struggles and celebrations in his exhibition Personal Mythologies.

The artist revisits the genre of history painting through the prism of everyday life, recounting his vision of society, from party scenes, dances and concerts to more intimate moments. As Isabelle de Maison Rouge says, "to speak of personal mythology is to take into account the questions that the artist asks of the society in which he lives." It was in 2020 during the Covid era that Julian Semiao's pictorial style evolved radically towards a purification of forms, giving primacy to line and drawing, in a desire to go to the essential while developing a true narrative.

 

In The Creation of Adam, God is a woman. In Judith, we witness an ambiguous game between the two women and Holofernes, between the act of stabbing and strangling, there is only one step, and it is sexual. Julian Semiao does not hijack the great paintings of art history, he inverts their symbols and codes to speak of feminism and commitment. In Decline, Marat is a woman lounging in her bathtub while we observe in color three CRSs engaged with a person in the street. Julian Semiao invites us to reflect on what the revolution is today, between demonstration and repression. In this painting as in some others, the artist uses a semantic process consisting in cutting the work into two distinct scenes. These are opposed in a different plastic treatment, in order to confront two points of view, two realities, and generate with this contrast a political idea.

 

It is also difficult not to see in the title of the exhibition a direct reference to the exhibition Mythologies quotidiennes (title itself borrowed from a book by Roland Barthes) which was held in 1964 at the Musée d'art moderne de la Ville de Paris, under the aegis of the artists Télémaque and Rancillac. We can indeed observe in Julian Semiao's work a certain militant orientation that reminds us of the fundamentals of Figuration Narrative. One can also see in it, as was the case for the painters of the 60s, a counter-proposal to the diffusion of a new colorful pop art for decorative purposes in today's art market. Personal Mythologies marks a first maturity in the career of Julian Semiao, a promising artist to be resolutely followed.

 

Follow this link to read our exclusive interview with Julian Semiao at the occasion of this show.  

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Galerie Chenus Longhi

20 rue des Gravilliers, Paris 3e

Exhibition open from May 27 to June 10, 2023

Opening reception on May 27, from 3pm to 9pm

Opening hours :

Tuesday-Saturday from 11am to 7pm

+ exceptionnaly on Sunday, May 28 for the Paris Gallery Week-end