
Renaud Jerez
POISON

POISON, 2024, exhibition view, Crèvecœur, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo
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POISON, 2024, exhibition view, Crèvecœur, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Heart Words Death, 2023, oil on cotton, artist frame, 193 × 148 × 8 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Dawn of Chromatica, 2024, oil on canvas, artist frame, 183 × 223 x 8 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Dawn of Chromatica, 2024, oil on canvas, artist frame, 183 × 223 x 8 cm (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

POISON, 2024, exhibition view, Crèvecœur, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Mood, 2024, oil on canvas, artist frame, 203 × 243 x 8 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Mood, 2024, oil on canvas, artist frame, 203 × 243 x 8 cm (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

POISON, 2024, exhibition view, Crèvecœur, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Peur, 2024, oil on linen, artist frame, 223 × 183 × 8 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

POISON, 2024, exhibition view, Crèvecœur, Paris. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Poison, 2024, oil on canvas, artist frame, 193 × 163 × 8 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, Poison, 2024, oil on canvas, artist frame, 193 × 163 × 8 cm (detail). Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo

Renaud Jerez, 4ric.C, 2024, oil on cotton, artist frame, 193 × 148 × 8 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Crèvecœur, Paris. Photo: Martin Argyroglo
All things are poison, and nothing is without poison: the dose makes the poison.
Poison, 2024, is a full-length portrait of a mature woman wearing Céline® glasses, in which is vaguely reflected a tempestuous red background of Chinese lacquer and Helios red. Her slightly scintillating, luminous green dress trails down to her Swiffer® slippers. An armoured witch from the video game Eldenring® causes a bottle containing a skull to levitate above her razor-gloved hand. The turquoise and pink inscription POISON runs across the scene.
Heart Words Death, 2023, is made up of two parts. The lower one uses an advertisement for the Disneyland Paris® amusement park, in which can be seen a child hugging the costumed character of the grandfather hero of the cartoon Up. An ochre-yellow character bringing to mind a hybrid human/animal creature, with a grazed snout and green “Slime” hair, wears a mechanical apparatus for hunting ghosts, inspired from the film Ghostbusters. The words Heart Death Words in Futura font frame the scene, on a lemon-yellow background.
Dawn of Chromatica, 2024, a tempestuous image on a white background, depicts two beings with outsized scrotums. With their imperfect, coloured skin and their Pokémon and Predator looks, they seem to be from another planet. In the foreground, a set of teeth or stones stands out, inspired by the cover of the album Dawn of Chromatica by the American artist Lady Gaga. They could be taken for the assemblage of prehistoric stones at Stonehenge, floating in an abstract foreground around two red fruits drifting in the middle of the painting.
Mood, 2024, is the largest painting in the show and it depicts three characters wearing green kimonos in what might be taken for an inn. We recognise them as Brad Pitt, the Joker from the film The Dark Knight, played by Heath Ledger, and a kind of Mickey Mouse, whose head seems to be detached from the rest of its body. The upper section contains a dubious pictorial representation of fake marble, and a candyfloss sky. The rather uncertain overall scene gives free play to the imagination to interpret freely the activities of these characters in a medieval-inspired setting with yellowish-brown hues.
Peur, 2024, is a half-length portrait of a character with a clownish appearance, in a state of decomposition, which dominates the viewer. Its eyes are masked by the image of an animal with red, globular eyes. The word Peur [Fear] floats above its forehead and dark hair, decked with gleaming disks, while its neck is festooned with an immaculate white scarf. Its fingerless hands are laid on its thighs, in a suggestive pose, and its legs seem to be wearing soft creamy stockings. The background is a shading of fluorescent pink to lemon yellow.
4ric.C, 2024. Two white figures stand out from a green background with impressionist tones. In the background can be seen purple flowers or fruit. The hair of the hirsute figure is shaped like a palm tree, its almond eyes are lemon yellow, with cobalt blue rings. In its left hand, it holds a transparent plexiglas cube, each of its facets being printed with a question mark. The lower character’s smooth face is simply run through by a pink eyelash line, reminiscent of a worm. It has an seemingly joyful expression. The two faces are aligned vertically, entirely concealing their bodies. Between Western comic books and manga, this unreal scene seems to suggest coition. An advertisement for Deezer®, a music streaming service, appears in the upper right corner, superimposed over the whole. A darkly coloured block bears the inscription 4RIC C.
*Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, better known as Paracelsus.