24eme Salon de Peinture de Clairac

True to form the 24th Salon de Peinture de Clairac kicked off with a riot of globular breasts, paint spills, harlequins and merry-making cubistic peasants, with guest of honour artist Jean Coladon. With the fitful meticulousness of the self-taught the man paints bare ladies with eyes like decals, geometrical tits and smudgy muffs, and has been doing so for 30 years. He places these in various imaginary contexts, sometimes adding an accessory here, a pair of wallpaper wings there. One would like just once to be spared the up-the-nostrils chin shot intended to represent Earth-shattering orgasm (a nod to ecclesiastical images of saints in ecstasy) but more often than not suggestive of acute back pain. Taking the mike at the opening vin d'honneur, the artist listed the various labels he had been given, and said that his favourite was to be called a symbolist. Too soft to be soft porn these silicon breasted naiads have become the dominant theme of French village art, though they make you wonder when any of these artists actually last saw a real woman in the buff. Clearly influenced by photoshopped images from lads mags and Lara Croft, the formalised anatomy and generic (where not totally blank) faces incarnate half-formed idealisations of the female object. What is so strange is that half the artists that produce this stuff are women. Needless to say the selection committee didn't like my stuff and hung it under a spotlight that drilled a shaft of light down the middle of my sunset creating an alarming nuclear armageddon effect.