PARIS.- This new body of work (painting and/or digital archive on canvas) is both inspired by the Versailles gardens of Louis XIV and the music band The Weeknd.
Indeed, Bevilacqua started his passion for Versailles when visiting France during his first exhibition at
Galerie PACT in 2016. When he began to work on this series, he heard songs from the album «Beauty Behind The Madness» by The Weeknd and this title made him think of the SunKing’s craziness and delusions of grandeur.
The title of the exhibition is both a tribute to the album and a reference to his vision of Louis XIV.
For the exhibition, the gallery space turns into a garden in the style of Versailles, with grass on the floor and trellis on the walls!
Known for combining high and low culture through elements of painting, drawing, graphic design, animation, and collage, Bevilacqua characteristically works in a saturated palette, covering his glossy canvases with brand logos and doodles. Michael Bevilacqua’s semi autobiographical mixed-media works serve as a platform for exposing his cultural, intellectual and spiritual preferences.
Stylistically influenced by Pop and Color Field Painting, he is also technically indebted to Andy Warhol for using screen-printing as a brush. “On the Surface Bevilacqua’s work resembles an updated version of Pop Art,” wrote one critic, “but he actually uses this imagery as a cryptic language about himself, his family, his art, and his internal struggle to achieve a balance between these worlds.”
Michael Bevilacqua was born in Carmel (California, USA), in 1966, works and lives in New York. He attended Long Beach State University and Santa Barbara City College, later continuing his studies at the Cambridge College of Art and Technology in Great Britain.
He has exhibited his work internationnaly at Deitch Projects, New York ; Peter Amby Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark ; Gering & Lopez Gallery, New York ; Kravetz Wehby Gallery, New York ; Chelsea Art Museum, New York, Palais de Tokyo, Paris ; Deste Foundation for Contemporary Art, Athens ; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek, Denmark ; and the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, USA.
His work can be found in numerous public collections including the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
