In his current series “Lace Zoo,” painter Marc Le Rest creates a surreal world of majestic animals covered in frills and lace. Le Rest’s colorful and imaginative oil paintings feature animals you would normally find at the zoo, like lions, giraffes and alligators, only instead of being locked in cages, they appear to be enclosed in colorful structures of soft fabric and accented with vibrantly colored butterflies. Le Rest’s bright use of color in the lace creates a deep contrast to the earthy tones of the animal’s fur, feathers and scales. The sizes of the paintings vary, with larger ones that include unlikely pairings of animals such as a gorilla and a crane, or several smaller ones that feature small birds. “Lace Zoo” will be on display through April 5 at Galerie Albane in Nantes, France.
