"The symbolist and baroque painting of Odile de Schwilgue"

If we rediscover with pleasure, every three years, the symbolist and baroque painting world of Odile de Schwilgue, we notice that while the style is unchanged, the renewed theme and a few technical enhancements enrich it.

The technical perfection of Odile de Schwilgue resembles that of the great painters of the Renaissance such as Raphaël or Michael-Angelo. The sophisticated colour schemes, light variations, and significant presence of shadows transform characters of generous plasticity into mythical figures.

A narrowing assessment

All characters originate from the Egyptian polytheism, or the Hebrew cabala, or a revisited antiquity : Horus, Lilith and Faun, to which are added the cat, and the sphere - the latter sometimes planet, sometimes ball of wool whose hanging thread can evoke that of the Fates.

Though clear, this assessment is too narrow, as her characters have lived before and elsewhere, drawing upon all mythologies. When Horus, the Egyptian god, the sparrowhawk of sand and resin, dominates a naked and stretched woman, do we not recognise Léda visited by the swan?

When tricephal Lilith, demon of Friday, sits on the throne dressed in feather-ribbons, does she not evoke other trinities? Asleep, or with an absent expression, they are all mediators between the invisible and reality.

The shadow of Horus

On a folding-screen triptych, a new goddess celebrates an unknown cult where a woman and a cat are the players. This sizeable painting produced using a glaze technique is of an astonishing virtuosity, and stems from a wish to step away from convention.

Another novelty involving the addition of leaf and lizard are references to the natural beauty to which Odile de Schwilgué does not hesitate to compare her creations. Since her last exhibition, one will also note that the man-woman couple asserts its presence even though the shadow of Horus hovers over their bed.

Light and colour.

Odile de SCHWILGUE is an artist through and through. While others are earning their bread and butter through a professional activity, she has been living from her art since 1973, the year she completed her studies at the Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg, her home town. Since the age of 25 , in painting after painting, she does not cease to better her acquired technique and innate skill. She describes her painting as "realist make-believe".
We could equally classify her in the contemporary representation, and link her to surrealism and a touch of symbolism.

Movements and tendencies aside, by the generous plasticity of the characters, the usage of drapes which emphasize movement and the importance given to light and colour, Odile de SCHWILGUE belongs to the tradition of artists from the Renaissance such as RAPHAEL or CORREGE. Unlike her renowned elders, her inspiration is more secular than religious. And if she finds herself interested in a religion, it is in the limbo of Egyptian polytheism that she feeds her creative inspiration.

But this non-objective representation of the Renaissance has evolved under Odile de SCHWILGUE's brushes. At her present level of artistic maturity, she flirts with technical perfection. Her graphic style is the most precise, her colour palette the most varied, her blending of colours the most delicate, her glaze the most subtle. The usage of sand and resin enhances the elegance of the overall picture while providing a mean for her low relief sculpture.

Exalter of womanhood, with different postures and symbols, Odile de SCHWILGUE has for several years represented the woman, a woman, always the same, unquestionably herself, idealised, and with the exaggerated sensitivity of the artist undoubtedly. Redheaded, generous, with white flesh of a transparency comparable to porcelain and a striking sensuality, this feminine omnipresence is representative of an era of affective vacuity that has otherwise disappeared.

Man, previously considered as an intruder, has gradually crept into this imaginary world, taming his muse. The arm wrestling heralds this upheaval.

Odile de SCHWILGUE is attractive at many levels.

On the borders of the Fantastic and Representational

Surprising, disturbing, bewitching, enigmatic, sensual, Odile de Schwilgue paints a strange universe. Another reality, on the borders of the fantastic and the representational.

She draws and paints flesh that she wrapped not so long ago into quivering draped material superbly. Today, her figures are colder, more frigid, but she wraps them up with glistening ribbons, gildings, and glints - the result of her excellent mastery of oil glaze.

In her universe, man only makes a brief appearance. Passion then embraces everything; from the point of view of form, those paintings are the most beautiful, the most voluptuous. Even if a tragic inspiration impregnates them. Her lonely women in strange nights, without scenery, are ambiguous beings with bird heads.

Sometimes, a head is present, but by some astonishing metamorphosis, huge wings have grown on their bodies. We can imagine them capable of flying away freely in the ether to reach the shores of a world to be born with limitless boundaries.

She likes Klimt, Léonor Fini, the icons, and the Egyptian esoterism which gives her a feeling of real-life. All these influences can be felt in her painting which, in a much barer style, reminds us of Mucha.

Odile de Schwilgue tries to escape from a world that does not really suit her. The one she invents with her brush is, of course, much more fascinating.

Odile de Schwilgué's recent works, Arts et Formes gallery. 34, rue de Metz in Toulouse, until 25 October.