Luxury

In «Le Luxe», Júlio Pomar explores cut-out elements assembled in a way that comes closer to three-dimensional assemblage than to the «drawing with scissors» inherited from Henri Matisse. The materials - canvas, paper, and even synthetic fur - accumulate so as to suggest, without losing their formal autonomy, the coiled body of the tiger.

The tiger series associates the feline with the female body, giving it an erotic charge that is more or less perceptible depending on the work. Pomar justified his choice of the tiger as a refusal of the classical themes of painting, stating that «the subject in painting (what is represented) ultimately becomes more the place where the game is played than the purpose of the game itself». Even so, the tiger remains a literary reference and, combined with erotic elements, opens up multiple symbolic readings.

The title refers to the verse «luxe, calme et volupté» from «Les Fleurs du Mal» by Charles Baudelaire, as well as to the famous painting of the same name by Henri Matisse from 1904, with its vibrant Fauvist colours.