Life Size • Shawn Barber and Turf One

Galerie d’art Yves Laroche presents
Life Size • Shawn Barber and Turf One
Sept. 2nd to 13th 2009
Opening reception: Wednesday Sept. 2nd 09 6-9pm

Galerie d’art Yves Laroche has been eager to present Life Size, a two person exhibition featuring the work of American artist Shawn Barber and Paris-native, Turf One (Jean Labourdette). Supported by each of this artist’s individualistic approach to portraiture, Life Size will be taking us through a refined collection of paintings documenting some of today’s most interesting personalities.

Both vivid and painterly, the work of Shawn Barber brings beauty to the heavily pierced and widely tattooed. Barber seemingly approaches the subject in a painting as a snapshot- isolating a moment where the ink penetrates the skin or when an angle feels just right. However, it is his poetic brushstroke that transforms his work from the documenting of a moment into a work of art. Amongst a long list of achievements and collaborations, his paintings can be found in private collections throughout the United States, Canada, Asia, Europe and Australia.

Turf One’s sculptural approach to painting removes his subjects from any typical context and brings them to a fantasy world. With a passion for graffiti, Turf One works mainly with found objects. His style and immaculate execution reference both Gothic and Surrealist works; however, the saints and scenes from that time have been replaced by Labourdette’s fellow friends, contributors and muses. Extending from the comforts of a frame, his subjects’ faces are painted with bodies and contexts which are carved, rusted, adorned and manipulated in a both highly exaggerated yet detailed manner. Represented by Galerie d’art Yves Laroche, Jean Labourdette aka Turf One has been building a strong following in the past 5 years.