Rebecca Brodskis' paintings question the foundations of human relationships. Although distorted by the haze of memory, her work articulates fleeting moments of everyday life in strikingly simple figurative compositions.
Read MoreBrodskis was born in France. She spent most of her childhood living between Morocco and France, and has more recently resided in Tel Aviv, New York, and Berlin. She studied painting at the Ateliers des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris (2007) and at Central St. Martins in London (2010). She worked in New York as an assistant to Norwegian artist Lars Laumann, before returning to live in Berlin. She studied Sociology at the University of Strasbourg in 2013, before obtaining her Master's degree in the field from the University of Caen Normandy in 2015.
The figures populating Rebecca Brodskis' paintings are drawn from ephemeral moments of contact: walking down the street, talking with friends, people seen in movies, or otherwise completely imagined. Brodskis reconfigures them into new situations to explore subconscious spaces.
Brodskis' paintings reflect on the in-between spaces of the self and the self in relationship to others. These are manifested in simple figurative compositions, where portraits of characters either dreamt or imaginatively transformed by Brodskis' crisp touch interact and pose for the viewer. Her figures are completely decontextualised, usually floating in blocked-out planes of muted colour and appearing disoriented or uncomfortable in their entanglements.
Brodskis describes them as 'metaphors of contemporary man, entangled in ever-expanding social circles, condemned to extreme lucidity but constantly invaded by the fear of tomorrow.' This sense of existential angst is articulated in L'attente (2019), where a solitary figure languishes on a block, gazing sadly out at the viewer. A somewhat melancholic, deadpan stare is present in many of Brodskis' portraits, reflecting the waifish anxiety of her world's inhabitants.
Headstand (2020) characterises the dancerly qualities of many of her characters, but they're joined here in an awkward system of support. The titular lycra-clad character does a headstand on a surface, leg grasped by a bored-looking figure to their right. They are non-specific characters, with the composition's focus drawn to the 'X' of their overlapping bodies.
In La paternite #1 and #2 (both 2020), childlike figures bend backwards to distort their spines around the heads of their supposed fathers. Appearing almost as religious icons, the points of contact between their bodies become moments of tension, the nature of their connection made ambiguous.
Brodskis connects figures by using blocky colours that blend outlines and body parts into singular entities on the same visual plane. In Belleville (2019), the mother and child portrayed wear the same canary-yellow clothes, merging into a concrete form with multiple extremities. In Endless Discussion (1) / (2) (2019), a two-part sequence shifts from a portrait of a couple with tangled legs to a solitary figure, his partner now erased.
Insouciance improvisée (2021) dissects the diptych format and repeats a pair of nearly identical women, stuttering across the canvas in joint poses that make it unclear whose limbs are whose. In these multiple figure works, Brodskis points to the muddled social connections that shape our identities. Through their dancerly interactions, the unknown of another body becomes palpable, the human bond made visible by expressionist movement.
Rebecca Brodskis has been the subject of both solo and group exhibitions worldwide.
Select solo exhibitions include Équilibres, Fabienne Levy Gallery, Lausanne (2022); Arrêt sur image, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2020); Fragments of Life, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin (2020); Dépendance, MarioKreuzberg Gallery, Berlin (2019); Unsettled disorders, Canopy Gallery, Netanya, Israel (2019); Drifting Singularities, Sputnik Gallery, Tel Aviv (2017); The Broken Faces, Larry Art Space, Berlin (2015); Identity affairs, Kaleidoskop Gallery, Berlin (2014); and The In-between, Shift, Berlin (2013).
Select group exhibitions include Io__, Cassina Projects, Milan (2021); Misa discoveries, König Galerie, Berlin (2021); Tomorrow is Another Day, Steve Turner Gallery, Paris (2020); All the Days and Nights, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, London (2020); Interférence, Le Studio, Paris (2018); Five French artists, Primitive Showroom, Tel Aviv (2017); Human factor, Ori Art Space, Berlin (2016); Disfiguring, figuring the unfigurable, Kelenföldi Erömü, Budapest (2015); Agora Collects, Agora, Berlin (2013); and Mother, Weserland, Berlin (2012).
Brodskis' website can be found here. Her Instagram can be found here.
Peter Derksen | Ocula | 2022
