Rose Barberat

Rose Barberat's work is an invitation to see painting as a link to cinema, fiction and narrative. Her paintings are contemporary dystopias and the images offer a plurality of readings and interpretations. In addition to this, color contributes to modify the initial impression produced by the scene depicted. Due to the literary background, Barberat's work emphasizes detail, as is the case with the use of the close-up used in both photography and film; and it is precisely these details and frames that are the guidelines from which the stories contained in his paintings are narrated, like snapshots that pause time.

In this sense, as a result of her experience during the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, Rose Barberat decides to create a collection of stories about intimate moments that occur prior to the sports competition. Moments in which it is necessary to disconnect from the world and concentrate on oneself: moments of profound vulnerability in the midst of the chaos of combat.

By the way, the artist comments: I have created this series of paintings where the color turquoise predominates as a reference to the blue of the pools and the colors of the fields and courts of competition. We can also call it a soft, pastel color, which contrasts with the idea of intensity and nerves within the sport. Revealing vulnerability behind the strength. There is something poetic about these moments of silent tension, demonstrating discipline, concentration, confidence, team spirit. The inner connection and solitude that often go unnoticed within the spectacle.

It is usual to relate sport with fury, passion and ecstasy (associated, in turn, with the colors red and orange), forgetting that in sport–as in art–competition is not with the other, but with oneself: to overcome our own marks, not those of others. So, the real competition is with oneself and begins with the action of holding one's breath and stopping time before diving into the water, jumping on the track or taking the first stride. Rose Barberat's painting thus plays with narrative immersion and experience through color by suspending the instant through the brush.

–Manuel Tuda