Yves Tessier: Woman in Shades Reclining on Bed, 2017, casein on aluminum, 42 by 52 inches; at Shrine.

reviews Jun. 01, 2017 Yves Tessier New York, at SHRINE by Eric Sutphin

Yves Tessier’s paintings, ten of which were on view in this exhibition, feature stylized figures that have been reduced to essential elements yet retain a vitality and distinct presence. His favored medium is casein on aluminum. Casein is a rapidly drying milk-based paint that was developed in ancient Egypt and was used in commercial illustration into the 1960s. Tessier nods to the medium’s long history in his works, which formally allude to Egyptian friezes,

illuminated manuscripts, and comic book illustrations.

Tessier, who was born in 1955 in Montreal, maintains studios in both Montreal and Harlem. New York’s Central Park was the backdrop for a number of the works on view, including Ghost Bathers 2 (2017), which depicts six women in and around a teal-colored body of water—some of them standing on rocks, others wading in the water, and another, located in the background, approaching a black bird perched on a branch. While the figures look sedate and withdrawn, their black fingernails give them a witchy appearance, as if they are a coven preparing for a ritual. Ambiguity is a central theme in Tessier’s work, which puts forth a world that seems at once archaic and contemporary.

Explicitly referencing Japanese shunga (erotic) woodblock prints, Le Mask (2016) shows two women engaged in a pre-coital moment with BDSM undertones. One of the women lies on her back, while the other, wearing a black sleeping mask, climbs on top of her. The supine figure appears distorted: her head and hair are flattened and seem to melt into a cerulean teardrop-shaped pillow. Apart from a few faint surface irregularities, the wall behind the women is a solid field of high-key crimson.

Tessier’s scenes are generally still and quiet. His figures often feel separated from or indifferent to one another. When they do communicate, it is usually through subtle body language. In 3 Youths on a Jetty (2015), for instance, two men standing in the middle ground and a woman facing them in the foreground seem to “speak” to each other through a series of coded hand gestures. One of the men gathers the fabric of his shorts in one hand, the other man makes a gesture recalling the letter “e” in American Sign Language, and the woman crosses one arm at a right angle behind her back. The title figure in Woman in Shades Reclining on Bed (2017) faces us while lounging on her side in a red mesh negligee, white studded heels, and large thick-rimmed sunglasses. In the grand tradition of the odalisque, she commands our attention with her casual confidence.

Tessier’s figures, despite their simplified nature, feel grounded in reality: small details like the crease in the back of a knee, a knowing expression, or a pair of high heels give them specificity and rescue them from feeling like hollow signifiers. As revealed in his preparatory drawings, which were not on view, Tessier carefully plots out each element in his paintings. The reductive scenes he crafts recall the cells of comic books, as if each one were a single moment plucked from a continuously unfolding drama.

Photo: Yves Tessier’s “3 Youths on the Jetty,” at Shrine. Credit Courtesy of the artist and Shrine

THE NEW YORK TIMES, FRIDAY, MARCH 24, 2017

What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week

YVES TESSIER

Through April 9. Shrine, 191 Henry Street, Manhattan; 347-693-4979, shrine.nyc.

In 1906 the German psychiatrist Ernst Jentsch set out a theory on the term “uncanny” (although Sigmund Freud is often erroneously credited as being first) as describing the uncomfortable sensation of assimilating “new and unusual” phenomenon into everyday life. The term has proved to be extraordinarily serviceable in describing art of the past century, including works by the French Canadian painter Yves Tessier currently on view at Shrine on the Lower East Side.

In these matte, chalky-looking panels painted with quick-drying casein on aluminum, Mr. Tessier draws from numerous lineages of art history, combining them in seamless yet curious ways. Figures are laid out in compositions that recall Egyptian reliefs and Greek vase painting, as well as Japanese prints (including shunga erotic prints), comics and the light sexual humor of painters like John Wesley and William N. Copley. Works like “Sur l’herbe avec les bernaches” (“On the grass with the geese”), from 2017, and paintings of nude bathers in Central Park conjure Manet’s incendiary paintings from the 1860s. Mr. Tessier’s panels are also filled with uncanny details, like a woman with two left feet or a turtle being fished out of a hot tub.

Mr. Tessier’s paintings might reflect his viewpoint as a French Canadian living between two worlds — he maintains studios in Montreal and New York. But the internet is also crucial. History and the present, politics and poetry, the sublime and the ridiculous can now be digitally compressed into clever memes. Mr. Tessier’s images channel some of that strangeness and possibility.

MARTHA SCHWENDENER