Émile Brunet (b. 1989, Montréal, Canada) employs the codes of Western Renaissance and Medieval art to present history and popular culture from common, yet unfamiliar perspectives. Now through March 7, 2026, Plato Gallery (NY) is presenting a solo exhibition of contemporary realism works by Émile Brunet in “Are They Peasant.”
In the artist’s own words: “’Are They Peasant’ is a series of Renaissance-inspired portraits of today’s neo-rural characters.” These men and women are less resemblant of agrarian workers toiling in the countryside than of young professionals with remote jobs, picking apples and tending to bees in the after hours. They inhabit their adopted roles with charm and gusto, much like nobility performing pastoral fantasies in Rococo paintings, where earls and countesses disguised themselves as shepherds.
Each of Brunet’s contemporary realism portrait paintings begins with an impression glimpsed from real life—a fleeting visual memory whose mystery he seeks to unravel. He then sketches out ideas and assembles a bank of images that he merges and collages, occasionally using AI to aid his intuition. Once the concept crystalizes, he creates an underdrawing directly on an oil-primed wood panel, overlays it with a golden imprimatura, and starts to paint with a mixture of oil and resin, a technique strongly influenced by traditional Flemish methods.
For more information about “Are They Peasants,” please visit www.platogallery.com.
Read “Renaissance-Inspired Portraits by Émile Brunet” at our sister site, FineArtConnoisseur.com.
Browse more articles on contemporary realism portrait painting here at RealismToday.com.
