Femme au Fauteuil, oil on canvas by Frédéric Brandon

Femme au Fauteuil, a captivating oil painting on canvas, is an exemplary piece by Frédéric Brandon, a renowned French artist born in 1943. With his extensive training at the Jullian Academy and the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, Brandon has established a prominent career in the art world. His debut exhibition at Salon de la Jeune Peinture and participation in the "antifascist collective" showcase his profound talent. For the past four decades, Brandon has continued to explore the essence of painting through various themes, greatly contributing to the narrative figuration movement that emerged in opposition to abstraction and new realism. This art movement, prevalent during the "Trente Glorieuses" era, was characterized by its focus on daily life and contemporary mythologies. Brandon, along with other artists of this generation, drew inspiration from popular culture elements like photography, cinema, and comics. The artists of narrative figuration believed that the subversive potential of their works was primarily derived from their aesthetic value, rather than explicit discourse. Passionate about politics, they were contemporaries of renowned thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, and Gilles Deleuze. Some artists focused on analyzing and reflecting on images, while others aimed to critically examine the society of their time through their artistic expression. This movement utilizes recycled images in a continuous narrative, often altering and subverting their original meaning in a subjective or political context. Narrative figuration maintains the belief that meaning is essential in their art.