“CITIES I DON’T REMEMBER: WORKS ON PAPER BY JOHN BAILLY”
GRACE TESHIMA GALLERY, PARIS
24 JULY 2015 – 12 AUGUST 2015
OPENING RECEPTION: 24 JULY 2015
Chez Grace presents 57 works on paper by French-American artist John Bailly. “Cities I Don’t Remember” explores the distorted perception of Paris that the French diaspora often creates. The longer we are away from Paris, the more our idea of Paris distances itself from reality. The conceptual Paris of the diaspora is not Paris; it is an abstraction.
Inspired by Matisse, John Bailly creates a series of Parisian cityscape drawings. The first: representational, based on an actual image of Paris; the second: a drawing of Paris; the third based on the second. As the project progresses the drawings become more abstract. The more distance between the original and the representation, the greater the abstraction – in art, as in our memories. In addition to the Paris series, Bailly presents series of other cities, including Venice, Rome, and Prague.
John Bailly earned his MFA in painting and printmaking from Yale University. He is a professor in the FIU Honors College in Miami. His works have been exhibited at the U Maine Museum of Art, Center for Visual Communication, Texas State University, and in addition to multiple sites in the US and Europe. John Bailly is represented by ClampArt in NYC.
John William Bailly 