The Tamesis
As swan song goes, Delhomme played a sizable role in turning that corner of 77th and Madison Streets into the most glamorous place for grooming, prep and pregame on the first Monday in May, and it was a pretty good one. Mark’s was one of his last advertising and brand identity projects before he turned his attention to painting full-time.
Since the beginning of his career in the 1980s, the Nanterre-born artist has been commissioned for posters, illustrations and fashion editorials in various locations including the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom. “It’s a bit like being a fashion photographer. If you’re a fashion photographer, you’re not at home. This idea of not being in my studio drove a lot of that,” he said.
In 2020, however, things changed, and the pandemic made traveling between Brooklyn, where Delhomme has a studio, and France difficult. It was then, he says, that he began to prioritize his painting practice.
Delhomme has held an average of one solo exhibition per year with Perrotin since 2021, focusing on depictions of landscapes, still lifes and figures with an almost journalistic eye and intention, often returning to photographic metaphors to describe his practice. This is most evident in “Models at Rest,” his 2024 solo exhibition at Perrotin in Paris that aims to capture the personalities of models in their moments of rest.
“What I do now is have the people I paint come into the studio wearing their own clothes. They might have something fashionable [on]but I’m not looking for that at all. “I’m just looking for who they really are and not put on an act and just be who they are,” he said. “It’s really a moment of truth in a way.”
His work is currently shown in two group exhibitions – “Century of Chess” at Galerie Perrotin Paris, and a group exhibition at Perrotin Matignon. The following summer, he will have a solo show at the Tokyo department store Isetan Mitsukoshi, followed by a solo show at Perrotin Shanghai in September.
