Louise Bonnet twists the classical nude into a grotesque architecture of flesh. Her bodies stretch, fold and bulge with an exaggerated plasticity that recalls the psychological pressure of Bacon, the elastic distortions of Boterismo, and the acidic humour of George Grosz—yet without settling into any of them. The compositions flirt with Renaissance idealisation only to sabotage it: limbs knot into impossible poses, torsos behave like pliable containers, and gravity becomes an unreliable partner. These figures oscillate between seduction and discomfort, monumental and abject, as if the genre of the nude were being inflated, deflated and reassembled under emotional duress. The result is a body that is both familiar and alien, classical in silhouette yet utterly contemporary in its volatility. Bonnet’s paintings do not represent anatomy; they expose the inner pressures that deform it.
