Capucines 2019

Cricorps's painting, Capucines, presents us with a still life built from careful, almost architectural blocks of colour. The paint has a lovely, matte quality; a physical presence, which invites you closer. The reds and greens feel earthy, solid. There’s a real tension, a push and pull, between the two dimensional shapes and the implied forms of the pot and flowers. I love the way the green blocks of ‘foliage’ at the top right almost break free of the structure, like a thought escaping. And that lower section - is it a table top, a floor, a wall? It’s hard to say! The horizontal white lines that run across the painting, just above the pot, add to this ambiguity. They seem to compress the space. Cricorps reminds me of someone like Lois Dodd, another painter who delights in the quiet observation of everyday forms. Like Dodd, Cricorps invites us to slow down and notice the strangeness and beauty in the simplest of things.