"Humour and sensitivity, subtlety and irreverence, surrealism is a potent mix whose alchemy is dangerous, and one that is quintessentially Belgian.
Is it not, after all, a matter of placing objects in an unusual context, or a thought in an environment that is unfamiliar to it?
It takes all the greatness of a true artist for these juxtapositions to become pure creation once more.
I would go further: the smile that comes to our lips at the sight of the portraits reimagined by Thierry Poncelet is, too, of a rare quality.
May the gentle ‘beast’ that slumbers within us recognise itself in these psychological portraits."
CHARLES KLEIBERG
Director of the Royal Conservatoire of Brussels
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Posters featuring the works of Thierry Poncelet
By Prints & Fine Art
He could have joined the ranks of traditional animal painters and built a career illustrating books devoted to the dogs he loves so dearly. He might just as well have dedicated himself to commissioned portraits, immortalising for their owners long-haired or short-haired pedigree dogs. But Thierry Poncelet chose another path which, without denying his interest in the canine world, proved more in keeping with his passion for classical painting and a sense of humour tinged with irreverence.
Born in Brussels in 1946, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts and at Saint-Luc before joining the studio of Max Massot, where he practised oil painting and trained in the restoration of old master paintings. In this demanding discipline, which requires a deep understanding of the pictorial techniques of past centuries, Thierry Poncelet quickly demonstrated considerable talent and soon built a solid reputation, particularly in portrait restoration. The adventure of the “aristochiens” began one day when he was confronted with a portrait of an aristocrat with a particularly unappealing face. On impulse, the restorer replaced the unpleasant visage with the head of a dog. The metamorphosis proved remarkably effective and offered the artist a new outlet for his creativity.
The genre is certainly not new and belongs to the long tradition of hybrid creatures — half human, half animal — that have populated human imagination since ancient times. Many artists have used this duality as a way to highlight certain types, character traits, or more broadly to explore human psychology through a series of striking archetypes. In this sense, Thierry Poncelet follows in the footsteps of artists such as Charles Le Brun or Isidore Granville, whose work Les Métamorphoses du jour (1828–29) achieved great success and notably inspired the Surrealists.
Yet his approach also stems from the rather sad observation that portraits of ancestors, however prestigious they may once have been, often languish in attics or end up forgotten in some neglected corner. So why not give these abandoned paintings a new life? This is where the genius of Thierry Poncelet lies: in this slightly provocative yet delightfully inventive transformation.
Flea-market dealers, antique sellers and collectors provide him with raw material from which he selects the most interesting pieces, not only for their pictorial qualities but above all for their atmosphere: situations, poses, accessories and clothing that lend themselves perfectly to the transformation of the portrait and help convey the desired expression. For Thierry Poncelet strongly asserts the psychological dimension of his work. Rather than presenting a panorama of the canine family, his portraits resemble a kind of human comedy — a gallery of expressions, temperaments and emotions to which the animal lends its features. The result is always strikingly truthful. Perhaps this is because the dog, more than any other animal, possesses such a rich range of expressions that it can illustrate countless character traits and emotions. And the great diversity of breeds offers an equally wide variety of physiognomies.
Exhibitions of Thierry Poncelet’s work in Belgium are unfortunately too rare. Living and working in Monaco, he is now absorbed by an international career that clearly demonstrates how widely his painting is appreciated around the world. Firmly rooted in the classical tradition, yet infused with humour and originality, his work never fails to delight admirers of the genre. The collection presented at Galerie 87 therefore offers a unique opportunity to become better acquainted with these fascinating “aristochiens”.
Didier Paternoster
March 2011
When Ancestral Dog Portraits have themselves ancestors, here is what they could look like.
Thierry Poncelet has still had a great admiration for the french illustrator Grandville, one of the best known for this type of creation...
But if we take some time to look forward till the beginning of humanity, the idea of creature mixing human and animal has still been a very popular idea. The Egyptian gods were represented as human-animal creatures. Anubis, god of death and funerals has for example a striking likeness with Poncelet's creations...
Through Antiquity and Middle Ages, half dog half human creatures were thought to live in far eastern regions of the world and often represented on romanesque and gothic churches as well as in book illuminations. Later at the classical age, the idea of likeness between animal and human creatures was considered as a part of science.
After Leonardo da Vinci, the famous french painter Lebrun inspired himself of animal depictions to describe different types of human portraits, along physical features.
These are all artistic and cultural traditions of which Thierry Poncelet is both the heir and the custodian.
Rémi Frémiot
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