Spectres in Pentimento
Solo show
Clémentine Bruno
Tabula Rasa Gallery Beijing
28 June – 16 August 2025
Solo show
Clémentine Bruno
Tabula Rasa Gallery Beijing
28 June – 16 August 2025
Tabula Rasa Gallery is pleased to present Spectres in Pentimento, a solo exhibition by Paris- and London-based artist Clémentine Bruno, opening on 28 June at the gallery’s Beijing space. Following her participation in the gallery’s inaugural artist-in-residence programme in Beijing, the exhibition features new works developed during Bruno’s month-long residency in May 2025, alongside several latest pieces. Art historian Zhang Yuling was commissioned to contribute an accompanying essay for the exhibition.
‘Pentimento’ refers to the phenomenon whereby layers of paint on a canvas becomes transparent over time, revealing the artist’s original brushstrokes underneath. As technology advances, many pentimenti can now be detected through infrared and other technical means, thus becoming crucial evidence for conservators in authenticating artworks. What I find intriguing about pentimento is that, on one hand, it serves to disenchant masters, revealing how they too once wavered, hesitated, and made revisions; on the other hand, it also re-enchants masters, since errors and doubts show more characteristics than their achievements, and forgeries barely succeed in replicating pentimenti. Thus, the authenticity asserted by pentimenti in artworks affirms their status as originals.
Clémentine Bruno profoundly appropriates the concept of ‘pentimento’ in her paintings. The actionable impetus stems from its emergence from the ‘interlayers’ of the picture plane. To isolate different layers, one must first construct layers, thereby requiring a painting to be regarded as at least a three-dimensional object, a micro-archaeological site, or a shrine-like architecture.
Her educational experiences at Goldsmiths, University of London (known for its conceptual and liberal pedagogical approach) and the French Academy in Rome (a bastion of classical academicism), combined with her upbringing in a Parisian intellectual family, cultivated a dual sensitivity to linguistic philosophy and visual information. For Bruno this has given rise to a kind of creator’s anxiety: it is impossible not to be enchanted by the classical, yet equally impossible to submit to tradition, with her intellectual trajectory fundamentally shaped by French discourses of confronting power mechanisms (both historical and market-driven).
Bruno’s praxis proves more compelling than her discourse, as she decisively turns to delve deeply into the very tradition she seeks to deconstruct. To summon spectres and artificially create ‘pentimento’, she establishes a shamanic context of emergence: returning to the era before canvas and employing medieval and early Renaissance icon painting techniques. She works on wooden panels, with a mixture of gesso and animal glue as the ground for oil painting. Gesso can be layered multiple times subject to personal preference; its accumulation is key to transforming the painting into both an ‘object’ and an ‘architecture’, and is crucial to constructing the passage for spectres of pentimento—the key to the ‘interlayers’. The depth and texture of the ground determine whether she is able to summon these spectres related to time and medium.
The material and technical aspects of the entire process strictly follow ‘ancient methods’, yet the direction diverges: not to depict or reproduce the external world clearly visible to the human eye, but to perceive and manifest ‘immaterial existence’, appropriating and deconstructing classical works not merely in terms of imagery, but in terms of painting’s function itself.
This series resists passive and consumptive viewing. Accustomed to seductively rich visual language, we will initially experience a rejection born of having nowhere to rest our gaze—not from abstract brushwork, but from the painting’s extremely scarce visual resources. It demands patience from viewers, or more accurately, ‘participants’.
This patience encompasses active cerebral engagement and physical proximity to the object. Bruno’s works are mostly small-scale, resembling ancient icon paintings. They require close examination to discover the textural patterns presented by the ground and the faintly emerging-vanishing relationship between image and ground—almost necessitating a classical mode of ‘appreciative handling’. Unfortunately, this condition contradicts contemporary exhibition formats and ways of viewing.
Yet once understood as ritual objects for summoning spectres, once the delicate temporal layers and images are sensed through ‘materiality’, once the transformation of organic matter is felt, the object's magic slowly releases. Like sacrificial vessels with patterns but no fixed form, they create a summoning field within the exhibition.
Excerpt from the exhibition essay by Zhang Yuling
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Clémentine Bruno (b. 1994, Paris) lives and works in London. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Art History and Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (2017), and a Master's degree from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (2019). Initially rooted in painting, Bruno’s practice references dominant, art historical or institutional, methods of visual representation. Her work seeks to track the persistence of something unique through transient historical forms, structural functions, or established social roles. Interrogating the processes of circulation of images, she frequently references literature and cinema, and employs linguistic tools such as the concepts of sign and of referential system in her work. Through various processes of de-contextualisation—in diverse media including painting, but also sculpture, print, and installation—Bruno subverts the familiar, finding presence in void spaces and absent subjects. The ghostly forms and obscured imagery both acknowledge and resist established frameworks for passive visual consumption. Bearing the traces of labor, the works objectify and signify creative processes. Once offered in an exhibition, they become autonomous objects within the greater capitalist system.
Her recent solo and dual-solo exhibitions include: Spectres in Pentimento, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2025); Educational Complex, Tonus (Paris, 2024); CITYBOX, one gee in fog (Geneva, 2024); TOTAL, Paris Internationale (Paris, 2022); 10 to 16, Frieze London (London, 2022); Adam Gordon | Clémentine Bruno, Chapter NY (dual-solo, New York, 2021); Then We Are Both Satisfied, Project Native Informant (London, offsite, 2020); Ironclad Contract, Project Native Informant (London, 2020). Group exhibitions include: Visions of Fading, Mendes Wood (Brussels, 2025); Rapture, Balice Hertling (Paris, 2024); White Sands ATS-3, Baleno International (Rome, 2023); Untalely, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2023); PNI @ 10, Project Native Informant (London, 2023); One Kiss is All It Takes, Halle Nord (Geneva, 2023); The Sky Above the Roof, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2022); Not Before It Has Forgotten You, Nicoletti Contemporary (London, 2022); For some bags under the eyes, Sans Titre (Paris, 2021); Bambi Woods Presents, ERGO (Athens, 2021); Flick Ratio: Degenerative Origins Between the Third Possibility, Space 52 (Athens, 2019); Storytelling, Stoppenbach & Delestre (London, 2020); among others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zhang Yuling, Ph.D. from Panthéon-Sorbonne University, scholar and writer of art history.
‘Pentimento’ refers to the phenomenon whereby layers of paint on a canvas becomes transparent over time, revealing the artist’s original brushstrokes underneath. As technology advances, many pentimenti can now be detected through infrared and other technical means, thus becoming crucial evidence for conservators in authenticating artworks. What I find intriguing about pentimento is that, on one hand, it serves to disenchant masters, revealing how they too once wavered, hesitated, and made revisions; on the other hand, it also re-enchants masters, since errors and doubts show more characteristics than their achievements, and forgeries barely succeed in replicating pentimenti. Thus, the authenticity asserted by pentimenti in artworks affirms their status as originals.
Clémentine Bruno profoundly appropriates the concept of ‘pentimento’ in her paintings. The actionable impetus stems from its emergence from the ‘interlayers’ of the picture plane. To isolate different layers, one must first construct layers, thereby requiring a painting to be regarded as at least a three-dimensional object, a micro-archaeological site, or a shrine-like architecture.
Her educational experiences at Goldsmiths, University of London (known for its conceptual and liberal pedagogical approach) and the French Academy in Rome (a bastion of classical academicism), combined with her upbringing in a Parisian intellectual family, cultivated a dual sensitivity to linguistic philosophy and visual information. For Bruno this has given rise to a kind of creator’s anxiety: it is impossible not to be enchanted by the classical, yet equally impossible to submit to tradition, with her intellectual trajectory fundamentally shaped by French discourses of confronting power mechanisms (both historical and market-driven).
Bruno’s praxis proves more compelling than her discourse, as she decisively turns to delve deeply into the very tradition she seeks to deconstruct. To summon spectres and artificially create ‘pentimento’, she establishes a shamanic context of emergence: returning to the era before canvas and employing medieval and early Renaissance icon painting techniques. She works on wooden panels, with a mixture of gesso and animal glue as the ground for oil painting. Gesso can be layered multiple times subject to personal preference; its accumulation is key to transforming the painting into both an ‘object’ and an ‘architecture’, and is crucial to constructing the passage for spectres of pentimento—the key to the ‘interlayers’. The depth and texture of the ground determine whether she is able to summon these spectres related to time and medium.
The material and technical aspects of the entire process strictly follow ‘ancient methods’, yet the direction diverges: not to depict or reproduce the external world clearly visible to the human eye, but to perceive and manifest ‘immaterial existence’, appropriating and deconstructing classical works not merely in terms of imagery, but in terms of painting’s function itself.
This series resists passive and consumptive viewing. Accustomed to seductively rich visual language, we will initially experience a rejection born of having nowhere to rest our gaze—not from abstract brushwork, but from the painting’s extremely scarce visual resources. It demands patience from viewers, or more accurately, ‘participants’.
This patience encompasses active cerebral engagement and physical proximity to the object. Bruno’s works are mostly small-scale, resembling ancient icon paintings. They require close examination to discover the textural patterns presented by the ground and the faintly emerging-vanishing relationship between image and ground—almost necessitating a classical mode of ‘appreciative handling’. Unfortunately, this condition contradicts contemporary exhibition formats and ways of viewing.
Yet once understood as ritual objects for summoning spectres, once the delicate temporal layers and images are sensed through ‘materiality’, once the transformation of organic matter is felt, the object's magic slowly releases. Like sacrificial vessels with patterns but no fixed form, they create a summoning field within the exhibition.
Excerpt from the exhibition essay by Zhang Yuling
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Clémentine Bruno (b. 1994, Paris) lives and works in London. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Art History and Fine Art from Goldsmiths, University of London (2017), and a Master's degree from the Slade School of Fine Art, University College London (2019). Initially rooted in painting, Bruno’s practice references dominant, art historical or institutional, methods of visual representation. Her work seeks to track the persistence of something unique through transient historical forms, structural functions, or established social roles. Interrogating the processes of circulation of images, she frequently references literature and cinema, and employs linguistic tools such as the concepts of sign and of referential system in her work. Through various processes of de-contextualisation—in diverse media including painting, but also sculpture, print, and installation—Bruno subverts the familiar, finding presence in void spaces and absent subjects. The ghostly forms and obscured imagery both acknowledge and resist established frameworks for passive visual consumption. Bearing the traces of labor, the works objectify and signify creative processes. Once offered in an exhibition, they become autonomous objects within the greater capitalist system.
Her recent solo and dual-solo exhibitions include: Spectres in Pentimento, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2025); Educational Complex, Tonus (Paris, 2024); CITYBOX, one gee in fog (Geneva, 2024); TOTAL, Paris Internationale (Paris, 2022); 10 to 16, Frieze London (London, 2022); Adam Gordon | Clémentine Bruno, Chapter NY (dual-solo, New York, 2021); Then We Are Both Satisfied, Project Native Informant (London, offsite, 2020); Ironclad Contract, Project Native Informant (London, 2020). Group exhibitions include: Visions of Fading, Mendes Wood (Brussels, 2025); Rapture, Balice Hertling (Paris, 2024); White Sands ATS-3, Baleno International (Rome, 2023); Untalely, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2023); PNI @ 10, Project Native Informant (London, 2023); One Kiss is All It Takes, Halle Nord (Geneva, 2023); The Sky Above the Roof, Tabula Rasa Gallery (Beijing, 2022); Not Before It Has Forgotten You, Nicoletti Contemporary (London, 2022); For some bags under the eyes, Sans Titre (Paris, 2021); Bambi Woods Presents, ERGO (Athens, 2021); Flick Ratio: Degenerative Origins Between the Third Possibility, Space 52 (Athens, 2019); Storytelling, Stoppenbach & Delestre (London, 2020); among others.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Zhang Yuling, Ph.D. from Panthéon-Sorbonne University, scholar and writer of art history.
Tabula Rasa Gallery (London)
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
Unit One, 99 East Road,
Hoxton, London
N1 6AQ
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