CALIMA (MMXXVI) - La Sieste au citron

CALIMA - Mixed media: stamped image with pigment ink, brush-on varnish applied by hand, for the durable protection of the work.

A young woman sleeps on a lavender-blue sofa, head resting on a cushion, her hair tied up. She wears a white camisole with thin straps; a yellow fringed plaid, peppered with foliage, covers her from the waist down to the floor. Her right arm dangles off the sofa and her hand still holds a lemon. On the left, at the same height, a stool bears a yellow earthenware cup with blue flowers, full of lemons. Behind her, the wall is covered with large white flowers with yellow centers, and a small gilded-framed painting shows a blue vase; the floor is a blue-and-white checkered pattern.

The décor takes more space than the sleeper: the flowering wall, the plaid, and the tiling echo each other as she remains still. The painting does not play on rest but on the moment just before, the second before, when the hand opens: the lemon is still held, it will not be for long.

Lavender blue everywhere, lemon yellow, off-white, a few greens of foliage, and cobalt of the small painting. The wall and the sofa are laid in a smooth, almost flat paste; the plaid is the most densely worked area, yellow in full paste, stirred with broad strokes where white and lavender peep through. The flowers on the wall and the lemons in the cup are built motif by motif, in thick touches.

Technique mixte: estampe à encre pigmentée, vernis au pinceau appliqué à la main, pour la protection durable de l'œuvre.
Varnish applied by hand, for the depth of the lavender blues and the durable protection of the work.
Support: premium canvas stretched on a wooden frame, ready to hang.
Format: 40 × 60 cm.
Signed CALIMA · Galerie Labo Joconde / Atelier Joconde · certificate of authenticity provided.

CALIMA is one of the creations uniting the artists Le Yack, Neo Pablo and Popsan within Atelier Joconde, a family studio where three sensibilities coexist: neo-realism, pop, and free figuration. A calima is the sand haze that the Sahara blows over Spain: it yellows the light, thickens the air, and stops the houses. Under this name, the Atelier paints only sleeping women in Southern interiors, where the décor takes up more space than the sleeper: blue azulejos, walls covered in flowers, fringed shawls and floral robes, quinces, peaches and lemons resting in earthenware. The lineage is that of Nabi intimacy in Vuillard and Bonnard, where wallpaper and fabrics become the true characters, and Matisse’s odalisques, bodies abandoned in the middle of a saturated setting. Everything is painted in thick paste, motif by motif, until the room vibrates around a sleep that does not move.

Each work is a unique piece.
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Keywords: CALIMA, sleeping woman, lemons, lavender blue, azulejos, Mediterranean interior, floral motif, impasto painting, nap, French contemporary art, Le Yack, Atelier Joconde