Painting as Process and Reinvention
After a period of reinvention, Jean-Baptiste Bernadet returns to Almine Rech Brussels with Successo Evidente, an exhibition that spans multiple periods of his career and reveals the artist’s ongoing experimentation with surface, materiality, and abstraction.
Installation view of Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s Successo Evidente (Hidden Tracks) at Almine Rech Brussels. Photo by Useful Art Services
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s Successo Evidente (Hidden Tracks) at Almine Rech Brussels is a kaleidoscopic dive into a career marked by reinvention, multiplicity, and an ongoing meditation on the nature of painting itself. Excitingly, the exhibition spans different periods of Bernadet’s practice, offering a rare opportunity to witness the breadth of his ever-evolving approach—one defined by parallel painting styles, media, and formats that resist easy categorization.
Bernadet has long been fascinated by the unstable relationship between control and chance, labor and ease. In his signature Fugue and Vetiver series, the artist meticulously conceals his process, creating ethereal, all-over compositions that seem almost accidental—like sun-faded tie-dye, weathered photocopies, or geological cross-sections of paesina stone. His layered canvases operate in the slippery space between natural phenomena and the painter’s hand, where the trace of the artist is both everywhere and nowhere.
But Successo Evidente also leans into moments of rupture and surprise. One of the exhibition’s most unexpected highlights is the Untitled (Briefly Gorgeous) series, where black-and-white peacock feathers are silkscreened onto canvas. The decision to present these feathers in stark monochrome is a striking departure from their natural iridescence, adding an intriguing layer of abstraction. This choice amplifies the tension between the handmade and the machine-made, with the precision of the silkscreen process standing in contrast to the organic, almost extravagant beauty of the peacock feathers themselves. The silkscreened feathers, symbols of vanity and artifice, become even more poignant in their reduction to flat, graphic forms. This series is especially resonant within Bernadet’s broader practice, which often explores the delicate balance between the physicality of objects and the ephemeral nature of the painted surface.
Jean-Baptiste Bernadet, Untitled (Briefly Gorgeous VIII), 2014 - 2024. Silkscreen ink on canvas (printed by Manor Grunewald Studio in Ghent), 120 x 100 cm (47 x 39 1/2 in). Courtesy the artist and Almine Rech
Bernadet’s active engagement with the printing process also links back to his larger practice as a bookmaker, where the act of reproduction and the rhythm of print are central concerns. His books, which often incorporate elements of collage, typography, and images, blur the line between object and concept in much the same way as the silkscreened feathers. Just as Bernadet has historically experimented with the materiality of the book as a vessel for both image and text, Untitled (Briefly Gorgeous) plays with the same sense of multiplicity and transformation, drawing attention to the process of making while confronting the viewer with a series of contradictory, layered meanings.
Throughout the exhibition, Bernadet’s works tease the viewer with questions about success—both as an aesthetic judgment and as a narrative of the artist’s labor. Is a painting successful because it looks effortless? Because it reveals its struggle? Or simply because it holds our gaze? Rather than providing answers, Bernadet lets these contradictions hover, unresolved but deeply felt.
While Bernadet has become widely known for his atmospheric, impressionist-like abstractions, Successo Evidente reminds us that a painter’s role is not to settle into a singular style but to constantly explore new paths. This exhibition reaffirms Bernadet’s commitment to reinvention and invites viewers to rethink their own expectations of what painting can be.
Installation view of Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s Successo Evidente (Hidden Tracks) at Almine Rech Brussels. Photo by Useful Art Services
Installation view of Jean-Baptiste Bernadet’s Successo Evidente (Hidden Tracks) at Almine Rech Brussels. Photo by Useful Art Services
Successo Evidente (Hidden Tracks) is on view through March 1, 2025, at Almine Rech Brussels.
