Exhibition “Ici et Ailleurs” by Yumiko Seki

«Ici»: This is Paris! So many times celebrated, sung, painted by artists and which today charm us once again thanks to the paintings and watercolours of Yumiko Seki who with the tip of his brushes makes appear the emblematic places of the Capital, but also the vibration of his energy, playing with delicacy between shade and light, angles of view, popular and artistic districts, tranquility of its parks. Each of his works is full of details. One finds in turn Paris in a soft and diaphanous light, the romantic Paris of the banks of the Seine with thousand reflections, the grey of its zinc roofs, the blonde stone of its monuments, passers-by hidden under their umbrella, the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, the Invalides, the Palais-Bourbon, the Haussmann buildings, its boulevards, its streets with its shops and cafés. The Seine on which some barges glide. So many faithful and delicate reproductions bringing to life so many emblematic places and monuments of the capital and always magical, ranging from Gare de l’Est, St Lazare, Luxembourg gardens and Tuileries.

Through the works of Yumiko we perceive an atmosphere mixed with serenity and silence, sometimes adding a part of mystery when some passers-by appear, or a story that this young woman saw in the frame of a window. Yumiko gives us for our greatest pleasure, some points of view chosen for their touch of charm and their symbolism attached to the great events of its history and its neighborhoods: along the Seine where we discover the Institut de France built in 1795, in the distance the Sacré Coeur in its whiteness at the top of Montmartre whose architecture soars in the immensity of the island sky of France, appearing opposite the imposing dome of the Pantheon. The most popular stations were also his models by their monumentality and metallic construction.