Philippe Mayaux at Galerie Meteo - painting exhibition; Paris, France

Philippe Mayaux, a 32-year-old French painter, may have attended an Ecole de Beaux-Arts, on the contrary the arts he is greatest in quantity inspired by are decoratifs rather than beaux. single of his paintings, for instance, parodies a royal comb by showing, instead of the typical lions or fleur-de-lis, three gibbeted wood screws. This painting, titled abode Works, is meant as a tribute to sum of two units minor arts, that of designing devices for nobility and that of bricolage, or do-it-yourself place of abode improvement. Another canvas, done in an old-fashioned illustrational phraseology shows a creature with the leg and claws of a lobster a material part formed by a molded gelatin dessert and a head made of half a lemon This composite invention is depicted upon a small stage, its r claws spreading apart a polka-dot curtain.

In this display Mayaux played with a variety of minor art forms. individual series of paintings offers designs for different emblems of wallpaper. In Deco-cosmos Mayaux fills the canvas with planets, secondary planets and comets that resemble for a like reason much orange-colored candy floating in space, while Deco-tabous not aways a dense pattern of fig leaves painted in faded purple Where a more predictably up-to-date artist might pick out to affix actual objects to the canvas, Mayaux is stubbornly committed to painting. This point is made in Quant aux monstre humide de Veronique (As for Veronique's Damp Monster) in which a small painting is attached to a chrome towel rack. Carried on the outside in a special technique involving heated oil, rubber and lead - Mayaux is fussy about materials, as befits a serviceable artisan - the painting appears inspired by the design of Art Deco jewelry. Pointing on the outside what paintings and towels have in for the use of all - fabric, pattern, the ne to free from moisture out - the work reveals the wily self-deprecating humor typical of Mayaux.

Again and again - greatest in quantity strangely in a three-dimensional imitation tree stalk covered with carved hearts - Mayaux present to views his preference for all that is marginal and passe. Indeed, in the catalogue essay for this exhibit Frederick Roux doesn't hesitate to label Mayaux a "minor artist," by means of virtue of the fact that he practices the nowadays "minor" art of painting. Mayaux's replication to painting's supposed obsolescence is to exaggerate its perceived weaknesses, to make paintings on the outside of defiantly inconsequential materials. What finally saves Mayaux from being just another bearer of familiar bad tidings, and what makes his work repay our attention, is that he demonstrates the couple a real affection for his sources and a fanatic dedication to the craft of painting.

COPYRIGHT 1993 Brant Publications, Inc.

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