Lutte libre
This series of paintings evokes both the Olympic modality and the mythology that goes with it in a more or less subliminal way.
The image combines wrestlers that our collective imagination may at first identify with ancient Greece, but who in reality are inspired by a variety of wrestling styles from very different contexts, such as Japanese judo, Breton gouren, Scottish back-hold, USSR sambo, Viking wrestling, Mongolian bökh and so on. In particular, ‘kushti’ wrestling, practised in India for several millennia, had a religious and spiritual dimension that affects the whole.
The presence of bodies testifying to the strength and ardour of the combat remains comparable, as does devotion through sweat, intimidation and eroticism.
