Marc Le Rest, "Audrey and the Monkeys"

Exhibition runs: July 13th – August 11th, 2024. Haven Gallery is pleased to present a collection of fourteen new paintings from French artist Marc Le Rest for his third solo show entitled “Audrey and the Monkeys” at the gallery. “Audrey and the Monkeys” celebrates the detail work and aesthetics of historic attire and costumery as well as the presence and nobility of the artists chosen sitters. Notably, Le Rest’s human muse for the collection, Audrey Hepburn, signifies the iconic and powerful connection faces and styles hold for the viewer. The actresses elegance and recognizability make her a natural sitter for the artist as he honors her legacy with cascades of opulent lace and fashions. Le Rest channels poignant expressions and emotive gazes in both his human and animal sitters. A reverence for all living things is felt deeply in his emotively painted portraits. About Marc Le Rest Born in the remote Armorica in France, Marc Le Rest turned his back in his early age to a promising career within the Holly Church and dedicated himself to the Arts and the kingdom of lingerie in Paris. But soon, he deserted the french capitale for New York, where he became an acclaimed garden gnomes designer. After a while he abandoned his decorative dwarfs to settle down among a bunch of drug dealers in Mexico, from where he flew to Bollywood, hoping to break through in indian cinema. In vain. So he withdrew along an Angels Bay back in Armorica and completely gave in his penchant for scabrous old ladies and lilliputian geishas, to whom he devoted three illustrated books. But he had to rush away from his ocean retreat and went hiding up the Black Mountains where he ended up by taking care of the dead people. And there, stroke by a sudden compulsion, he undertook to decorate with lace, penis and sumos, bodybuilders and alligators, and quantity of others harmless creatures. In the same life, Marc Le Rest contributed as a textile designer to the collections of Hermès, Armani, J.P. Gaultier, Sonia Rykiel and Etro in Europe, but also collections of the major home furnishing textile companies in the United States.