Canetti Chic. Michel Canetti, in his exhibition at the Thierry B Gallery, moves from fashion plates to canvases of elegance and style, celebrating feminine beauty and appeal.

 

His approach is disarming, direct, and minimal, capturing good looks and alluring charms in a few deft strokes of the brush. His underlying touch of eroticism is as delicate and enticing as traces of perfume of exquisite and bewitching bouquet.

 

Such skills and approach are to be expected, for Paris-born and design-graduate of the Sorbonne Canetti has long been a master in the field of fashion. At the peak of a twenty year-plus career, he is acclaimed as one of France’s leading fashion illustrators, his images enlivening the pages of the leading European magazines, of Elle, Vogue and Le Figaro. The range of prestigious clients is awe-inspiring – Diana Ferrari, Guerlain, Chanel, Givenchy, De Beers – to mention a ransom few. On the finer art side, he has exhibited in Paris, Zurich, Hamburg, Singapore, Sydney and Melbourne, where he has been living since 1997.

 

For his paintings, his focus is usually the face, a make up of eyes, lips and noses crowned with short hair styled or long and loose, rendered with an expressionist verve that whispers of playfulness and moments of exquisite passion. While all is very chic and reminiscent of high fashion glamour, the creativity behind his gestures of paint deals clever insights into the feminine and the eternal fascination of her charms.

 

Although the paintings have been given individual women’s names, they are not portraits. The only exception he ever made was Catherine Deneuve, the, epitome of French elegance and film star pinup of every thinking man. This exhibition presents Angele, Monique, Bridgette, Dani and Appolonia, appealing names, which, Canetti explains, correspond to the face and character portrayed.

 

Beguiling, sensuous lines engage and delineate the allure of the female, decorative enticement the veneer of attractive and ensnaring character. There are also the occasional three-quarter length figures like Monique, the fashion model of suggestive look and gloved gesture, fashionables of flowing gowns and drop earrings.

 

The recent introduction of red, and occasionally orange, as background represents a major shift to the more passionate, as in the close up of the sultry Renee, and Antonia of the disarmingly direct look. Pink lips on red. Canetti is a master of the modish. Effervescent as champagne, his paintings invite your participation and pleasure.