Passion is a sign that speaks to everyone with disarming recognition.

Following his residence at China’s biggest rose plantation in the Yunnan region,  ArtCN gallery in Shanghai has invited the emerging French artist Quentin Derouet to exhibit his work in the context of the exhibition Without You, which also features the sculptures and ceramics by the Chinese artist Qiong Wan.

The showcase gives an insight into Derouet’s unique artistic practice, which replaces the usual combo of strokes and palette with red roses used as pictorial and chromatic tools. The series of canvases on display investigates the artist’s experimentation with red roses, emphasizing their differences and primal features through the range of pigment of the flowers. Crushed in fresh particles or made into liquid, the roses are the medium through which the feelings of the artist come into manifastation. The nouances of emotions are to be seen in the different shades of red, orange and pink, which evokie in the spectator luminous and abstract landscapes, reminiscent of Claude Monet. The minimal at times almost brutal bareness of the paintings creates a powerful contrast with the delicacy of the object used for their execution, gracefully oscilating between romance and drama.