Sacre Coeur 2013

This painting of Sacre Coeur by Pietropoli Patrick is about 50cm square. It's a thick impasto of muted whites, blues and browns, and you can almost feel the churn of the brush, the artist building up the forms, scraping back, and then adding more. I can imagine him standing there, probably on a rooftop, in the cold, squinting through the haze, trying to capture the light as it hits the dome, the constant dance between the solid structure of the basilica and the surrounding buildings, and the shifting atmosphere. See how the sky is heavy with dark greys and blues, almost pressing down on the city, while little pops of red peek out from the buildings below, fighting for attention. The artist’s mark-making brings a feeling of the built environment and its ever-changing life. I feel like this painting could be in conversation with others who have painted Paris, like Pissarro or Utrillo, but with a rawer, more immediate sensibility. Painting is like a conversation across time, isn’t it?