Karine Bassal - Peintures à l'huile
Demarche Expositions Oeuvres Contact Instagram Facebook LinkedIn
 

I have always been fascinated by faces. My primary subject matter is the female portrait, the eyes in particular. I am drawn to the distinctiveness of the eyes, their potential to communicate and awaken emotion in a single glance. My large-scale oil paintings portray women who are strong, confident, and not afraid to look at you directly in the eye. My goal is not to simply copy a given form, like a photograph. I want the Life and the spark of my subjects to leap from the canvas and move the spectator.

I draw inspiration partly from the realm of celebrities and partly from the women in my life who become my muses. By choosing to depict close-cropped portraits, I often eliminate any possible context, sometimes leaving the viewer to struggle to identify who they are looking at. My recent paintings transform my muses into icons linked to a specific power or characteristic. This idea fascinates me and I am exploring its potential with a new collection of paintings, currently in production.

I work exclusively with oil paint. I favour a clean and crisp aesthetic. Brushstrokes are subtle; colours are bold; lighting is dramatic. Thin layers of glazed paint give the impression that the light emanates from within the canvas. My style is informed by such artists as Caravaggio, Édouard Manet, Alphonse Mucha, and more recently the Renaissance and the religious icons of the Middle Ages.

Karine Bassal, 2016

Biography

Karine Bassal is a Montreal-based artist who started oil painting at the age of nine under the guidance of Ena Van Dykhoff. Always creative, her love of art led her to complete the Fine Arts program at John Abbott College (Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec) where she discovered the virtues of contemporary art. To deepen her understanding of the art world, she completed her Bachelor’s degree with Honors in Art History at McGill University (Montreal, Quebec) while working as a representative in galleries around Montreal. She was a proud recipient of a scholarship from the Social Sciences and Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) when she undertook Master’s level classes in Art History at Concordia University (Montreal, Quebec). Following her studies, Bassal chose to devote herself to her art production full-time. Her clients’ enthusiasm towards her paintings confirms she made the right choice. She was represented by Espace Galerie Dimension Plus in Montreal from 2009 to 2016. Her solo exhibition “Muses” will open October 20th 2016 at Galerie Erga (Montreal, Quebec).

 
  © All rights reserved Karine Bassal karine@karinebassal.com