“When you’re alone, you’re yourself. It is the truest form of yourself.”

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The little room upstairs has a dual reference point for the artist Johanna Barthet who considers the little room upstairs as a state of mind, when she is alone with her thoughts. It also refers to her art studio which is situated in a beautiful inspiring room upstairs in her home.

 

 

All the works in this exhibition are depicting female portraits, all staring directly at the viewer. Their stare is a powerful one that conquers the viewer’s own space and takes over. The use of props and backgrounds is a very minimal one and lacking detail, thus enhancing the dominance of the portrayed face and the crudeness of the truest self when one is alone without any distractions.

 

 

Painting female portraits has been Barthet’s preferred subject since she was very young. This is her second solo exhibition showing such portraits and the subject is becoming quite a synonym of Barthet’s oeuvre.

 

 

The love Barthet has for this subject matter and her art can be fully captured in her own words, where she describes her artworks as ‘putting love in a bottle’, where her portraits are magically captured and when she finishes working on a portrait, when the fleeting moment is gone, it is hard to conjure that sensation once again...