press release

Three times Bettie. This is what viewers first encounter at Ida Tursic & Wilfried Mille’s exhibition at Almine Rech gallery in Paris. Three times Bettie Page, the memorable pin-up girl. She was famous in the Fifties, but also well-known for the numerous fetish photographs representing her. Three times Bettie Page, meaning three identical paintings which, spaced apart, finally take over in its entirety the very large wall facing the entrance of the exhibition space.

We imagine these three are identical –except for a few details, as the artists made the decision to vary the content of a small frame hanging on the background wall inside the paintings– before each receiving a different pictorial treatment, diverging not in its nature but in its consequences. This pictorial treatment is three times identical in nature then, with colored, architecturally laid-out spots applied on the surface once the portrait underneath is finished. Its consequences fluctuate according to which part of the body or the décor are covered with paint smudges, inflicting an obvious singularity to each painting by radically altering its composition.