Jean-Antoine Norbert “Euphoria and Dread”

Dacia Gallery

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Dacia Gallery presents “Euphoria and Dread”, NYC-based artist Jean-Antoine Norbert’s fifth solo exhibition. Throughout his artistic career, Jean-Antoine’s work has frequently explored the complexities of human psychology. His new series is both a tribute to the powerful tradition of the Old Masters, particularly Diego Velasquez, whom he took as a role model during his formal training at the Angel Academy of Art in Florence, Italy, and a return to his concern with the intricate language of human emotions. The new paintings also showcase the evolution of Jean-Antoine’s style since he completed his artistic training in two renowned art programs, the Angel Academy of Art and the New York Academy of Art in New York City, where he earned an MFA in May 2016.

The works in Jean-Antoine’s new “Euphoria and Dread” series are intended to function as an in-depth, visual conversation between artist and viewer concerning intense human emotions such as joy, euphoria, triumph, suffering, fear, and dread. The works explore the sense of awareness of the friction between the higher self and the incarnated body that can arise with persistent mindfulness. These works were born, in particular, out of Jean-Antoine’s ongoing fascination with the way that dancers move and their open and expressive body language. With the paintings, he delves into the symbolism and language of the mind expressed outwardly by the dancer in a way that has the potential to be understand universally.

In Euphoria and Suffering I (May 2016, oil on canvas, 81”x83”), a woman in a crimson dress leaps through the air, her legs folded towards her back, her arms raised towards the sky. She smiles, conveying a feeling of victorious joy. On the left side of the painting, a man catapults through space. He is cambered backwards and raises his left hand toward his face. His eyes are closed and his expression is one of bliss. The body language of the two figures transmits joy, bliss, euphoria, and well being, states of mind a person might experience after achieving a personal goal, completing an arduous athletic feat, finishing a glass of excellent wine, or luxuriating in the aftermath of lovemaking.
To the right of the man, quite inexplicably, a shark cuts through the negative space on a direct path toward the woman. The shark functions as a clear memento mori. A Latin term, memento mori means: “Remember that you will die.” In ancient times, during his triumphal procession following a military success, a victorious general would appoint someone to stand behind him and whisper, “Look after yourself and remember you’re only a man,” a necessary warning against hubris and a reminder that, despite his feelings of satisfaction and sense of achievement, the general, too, was finite. In the medieval period, the concept of memento mori was adapted to Christian theology and became a practice of reflecting on one’s mortality. Meditating on visual and textual representations of the concept became a means of perfecting one’s character by cultivating detachment and other supposed virtues and by attending to the immortality of the soul and the afterlife.

Jean-Antoine’s concept of memento mori incorporates a modern and secular view on cultivating an awareness of one’s own mortality. One aspect of the concept of memento mori, that of “vanitas” (also Latin, meant to describe the fleetingness and finite nature of life), gets to the heart of what he is trying to communicate with this series of paintings: With the awareness that nothing lasts forever, Jean-Antoine attempts to live and feel each moment and the emotions that come with them. Euphoria and Suffering I explores the complexity of human emotions as they combine with movement to define experiences as they unfold. Even when feelings seem to contradict one another—for instance, anticipation or excitement competing with dread; elation contrasting with fear; aggression vying with the impulse to nurture, and so on—they are, contends the artist, actually manifestations of this sense of vigilance and awareness of the transience of life. He believes that there is beauty in that awareness and has attempted to encapsulate it in this picture as the very moment of one’s liberation quite literally from the earth. With the dancers, there is a realization that the moment will pass and gravity will prevail.
In another work from the series, Euphoria (September 2015, oil on canvas, 24”x 18”), a woman hurtles through the air, her body framed by a background of sparse clouds and blue sky. Head thrown backwards, arms raised to the sky, hers is a posture of joyous rapture, of liberation from the heavy pull of gravity. She seems to be saying in a message to the entire universe, “I am here! What I am experiencing is so extraordinary!”

Another ecstatic dancer appears in Euphoria and Suffering II (May 2016, oil on canvas, 81”x83”), her body framed against a background of blue sky interspersed with soft, white clouds. Her dancer’s limbs are organized, symmetrical. Her back is arched, her head is thrown back, and her arms reach out behind her as though she is in a dive. She is lost in the mass of her hair. Another shark figures in this picture. Menacing, it emerges from the lower left corner, the sharp tip of its nose aimed at the diving woman, its mouth open, hungry. An eagle glides in the air just above her, as though watching over her, perhaps preparing to snatch her up to safety should the shark draw closer
This mysterious, seemingly unperturbed rather than oblivious woman represents, for Jean- Antoine, the ephemerality of joy, for who can live in a state of constant euphoria? And, how might one experience joy to fullest if they have never experienced pain or fear? In this painting, the shark is symbolic of the certainty of death, yet it is challenged by the watchful gaze of the eagle, whose protective presence seems to emphasize that faith in oneself can provide the necessary assurance to take such leaps as did this joyful woman!

Joy and the Fear of the Unknown III (April 2017, oil on Canvas, 24”x 18”) features a partially clad capoeirista who catapults into the air, his arms outspread, his body soaring into the symbolic unknown. He is lit from both sides and poised, mid-leap, against a background of deep black. Clad in the traditional white trousers of the capoeirista, the dancer appears to have abandoned control, surrendering himself fully to a state of ecstasy. With courage, he has launched himself into the unknown.
For Jean-Antoine, the willingness to take such a leap is not evidence of fearlessness or foolishness. Rather, he regards such gestures of self-confidence as victories over his tendency toward hesitation, which can be a formidable impediment to following through with decisions based on trust in one’s instincts. For the artist, this painting represents the decisive but possibly not-even-conscious moment when a person gathers his or her courage and leaps into the unknown despite fear or self-doubt. In this painting, the figure is a bright silhouette of faith in himself poised against a pitch black background of the unknown, of potential terror.
Other works in this series are: Joy and the Fear of the Unknown IV, Joy and Fear of the Unknown V, Joy and the Fear of the Unknown VI, Joy and the Fear of the Unknown VII, and Joy and the Fear of the Unknown VIII.

Jean-Antoine made a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II that is on permanent display at the British Consulate NYC. His work was sold twice in the Art auction “Take home a nude” at Sotheby’s. He has exhibited at Gallery Claire de Villaret, Paris and Michelle Landolt, New York. His work was viewed in numerous shows in New York, Florence Italy and Switzerland. He is the Recipient of The David Schafer Portrait Scholarship and has been a copyist at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. His work is in private collections in New York, Malaysia and Switzerland. He is represented by 107 Bowers Gallery in Jersey City, NJ and Dacia Gallery in Manhattan. He earned an MFA from the New York Academy of Art, a school dedicated to the study of the figure, a diploma from the Angel Academy of Art in Florence Italy and a medical degree from UNIL, Université de Lausanne, Switzerland. He is a teaching assistant at the New York Academy of Art and he gives critical feedback for art students in Manhattan. His realist artwork depicts mainly the figure.