Charles Hascoët draws from art historical tropes, iconic films, and childhood memories to paint nostalgic scenes that exist between reality and imagination.
The artist fuses discordant symbols into domestic sill lifes, romantic portraits, and dreamlike landscapes to create fantastical narratives. Hascoet’s tableaux pay homage to reclining figures of master French painters, like Gustave Courbet and Eugène Delacroix, while also incorporating an auto-biographical dimension as the artist inserts himself into these often peculiar worlds.
In one painting he drifts away on a raft, contemplative and surrounded by Lemurs, in direct reference to Werner Herzog's 1972 film "Aguirre, the Wrath of God.” In another he is consumed by three black plumes of smoke, recalling classic supernatural drama films Uncle Boonme, The Fog and dark fantasy horror, The Keep. By combining art-historical tropes with personal iconography, Hascoët invites us to join the process of self-discovery as he uncovers various parts of himself, as well as our collective histories.