2024 - 2025

Painting as Make-up

Painting as Make-Up is a series of portraits that draw a connection between painting and make-up, reflecting on identity, historical distortion, and self-image in the digital age. Inspired by ancient roman busts sculptures with lost colors, the works blend realism with references to Dutch and 19th-century masters, navigating the boundary between reality and artifice. Accompanied by a panoramic photograph digitally constructed after Buñuel’s The Exterminating Angel, the body of works creates a theatrical tableau where figures form together a staged composition, raising questions about truth, power, and representation.

"Painting as Make-Up": A body of works Exploring Painting, Identity, and Post-Truth

This is Painting as Make-Up, a series of portraits that questions the relevance of painting in today’s world. This body of work draws a conceptual link between painting and make-up, exploring themes of constructed identities, historical manipulation, and the post-truth era. The series also examines how individuals curate their self-image in the digital age.

Consisting of approximately fifteen oil paintings ranging from 40 x 50 cm to 100 x 120 cm, the series reflects on the lost colors of ancient roman and egyptian busts sculptures —where original hues remain speculative despite various reconstructions. This historical uncertainty becomes a metaphor for contemporary concerns about truth and perception.

In the first series of paintings (40 x 50 cm oil portraits), Maitre brings a sense of realism to roman bust sculptures found at the Allard Pierson Archeological Museum, and other museums, by applying skin tones and textures reminiscent of Dutch Golden Age masters such as Frans Hals and Jan Verspronck, as well as 19th-century painters like Manet and Delacroix. With two decades of experience as a digital retoucher in fashion and advertising, the artist integrates an intricate understanding of skin textures and tonal variations into the work, further blurring the line between artificiality and authenticity.

One portrait in the series draws inspiration from Japanese Noh theater masks and 17th-century Netherlandish paintings, highlighting the significance of skin as a surface and a tool for character construction. Contemporary figures also make an appearance—such as a portrait of Vladimir Putin depicted as a teenager, positioned on a sewing mannequin to evoke notions of theatricality and disguise. There are also a portrait of Mao Zedong with facial green stains, and Jean-Paul Sartre bearing a fake moustache. They both prompts viewers to reflect on the theatrical nature of identity and power.

In the second series, Maitre portrays modern archetypes of an image-driven society—a woman absorbed in a phone call, a man holding a mysteriously doubled vase, and a TikTok influencer posing before his phone and ring light—each reflecting the ways we curate, consume, and construct our identities.

A central element accompanying the paintings is a large-scale photographic work, Cut Through the Living Room of the Exterminating Angel (Lambda print on Kodak paper, 150 cm x 70 cm). This panoramic composition reconstructs a pivotal sequence from Luis Buñuel’s 1962 film The Exterminating Angel, where characters fall under a supernatural curse and become trapped in a living room. The moment captured in the photograph suggests an impending, inescapable fate—an unsettling parallel to the figures in the painted portraits.

When exhibited together, the paintings and the photograph create a theatrical tableau, placing the characters in dialogue with one another. The result is a haunting meditation on power, illusion, and the fragility of truth in an era of uncertainty.

Through Painting as Make-Up, Maitre invites viewers to engage with the interplay of history, artifice, and contemporary anxieties—raising questions about the roles we play and the narratives we construct.

List of paintings ordered by their production dates:

1. (Young Kissinger}
04 octobre 2023

2. Travestissement des faits: joue droite (Painting as make-up: right cheek)
14 novembre 2023 - 22 novembre 2023

3. Travestissement des faits: joue gauche (Painting as make-up: right cheek)
5 décembre 2023 - 12 décembre 2023

4. (Jules César)
13 décembre 2023 - 22 décembre 2023

5. Poetintje masker op Naaimannequin (mask of Putintje on a sewing mannequin/ masque du jeune poutine sur mannequin de couture)
17 janvier 2024 - 05 avril 2024

6. Nô theater mask with the flesh of Eduaert Wallis by Jan Verspronck (Painting as make-up series)
10 avril 2024 - 15 mai 2024

7. In the Living Room of the Exterminating Angel (painting)
23 avril 2024 -

8. Daughter of Rubens as Chinese Oil Worker (Painting as makeup Series)
05 avril 2024 - 17 juin 2024

9. Masque mortuaire du jeune Robespierre (Death Mask of Young Robespierre)
21 juin 2024 - 06 août 2024

10. Le Trou dans le masque
16 août 2024 - 17 août 2024

11. La tête dans le vase
18 août 2024 - 28 septembre 2024

12. Jean-Paul Sartre et la fausse moustache
16 septembre 2024 - 28 septembre 2024

13. Mao, Daily Routine Cover-up
30 septembre 2024 -

14. Your holophace
15 octobre 2024 - 18 novembre 2024

15. Eyeline phone call with stripes
20 novembre 2024 - 12 décembre 2024

16. Doubled Vase
20 décembre 2024 - 28 janvier 2025

17. In Cairo: broadcast of emotions
18 février 2025 - 17 mars 2025