It’s clear that Rousseaus’s work is dominated by a fascination with the primitive, the exotic and the savage. From all accounts, he led a difficult life. Not only did he survive the deaths of two wives and six of his infant children, his life was marred by poverty. As an untrained, self-taught painter, he was rejected by his contemporaries. His style was at odds with the French Academy’s conventional approach to perspective and realism. Thankfully, the younger generation of his time championed his work.

Rousseau’s research and inspiration have led to a quintessential style of dreamlike simplification that has its own merits beyond the rather outdated and philosophically regressive nature of his content focus. In the end, however, I have difficulty sharing Rousseau’s fascination with the exotic. The process of fetishizing “the other” resulted in faceless generalizations of indigenous peoples and stereotypes of uninformed imaginations (that’s not to say he was totally uninformed or without imagination!). The salient thing is that his work highlights everything but the everyday – this is the point of parting of my focus and Rousseau’s. It provides, nonetheless, a feast of fascinating material for both the eyes and the mind.

Tags: gallery, London