Hadrien de Corneillan - The Final Countdown – online solo exhibition

Hadrien de Corneillan lives and works in the south of France, between Nimes and Avignon. In his work the painter contrasts socialization and nature, man and the environment, the future and the past. What sounds so succinct - will be our fate.

A few years ago, Hadrien had perfected his painting to such an extent that the pictures appeared photorealistically. A couple of years ago he changed the colours. From then on, black and white dominated.

His subjects: industrial ruins, dismantled offshore oil rigs and, in front of that, people enjoying their usual leisure activities. It's a bit like the Blade Runner, the 1982 Ridley Scott dystopian film noir that depicts a future, apocalyptic world that is both disturbing and beautiful in its imagery. It also has something of a mood lost in reverie, but it is not a dream world, it is not a dream interpretation. With biting realism, the artist takes us out of our individual soap bubble worlds.

“Will things ever be the same again”?

Text by Andreas Schlichtner, Vienna, 01/04/2021 // proofread by Kelly Dale