The Girl at Daybreak
When the everyday becomes a place for painting
By Alain Rouschmeyer – Painter
There are gestures so simple we forget their poetry.
There are mornings when the body, barely awake, tries to reconnect with itself.
And there are moments that, under the painter’s gaze, become entire worlds.
It is within that fragile tension between the ordinary and the essential that The Girl at Daybreak takes shape — an acrylic painting on canvas (100 x 100), created in 2024.
A moment seen from above
The scene is viewed from above: a young woman, nude, curled up in her bathtub, washing her hair with a handheld shower.
She is focused, absent from the outside world — perhaps still suspended between sleep and day.
This unusual, almost photographic framing suggests a kind of detachment, or discretion.
The gaze is not intrusive; it is held, distant, respectful.
It observes a moment that was never meant to be seen.
And yet, that’s precisely where it draws its strength.
The body in the everyday
What moves me in this scene is the direct relationship between body and space.
There is no added décor here, no staging.
The bathtub becomes a raw container — a geometric volume, almost architectural — holding a human figure, real, naked, fully in action.
I’m not seeking to idealize the form, nor to stylize the gesture.
I’m seeking to capture the density of an ordinary moment, without artifice.
This work on the body belongs to a broader exploration: that of poetic realism, an art of intimacy that speaks, too, of who we are.
A light without theatre
The light in this painting is not dramatic.
It is diffuse, natural, without effect.
It follows the volumes, glides over the shoulders, plays across the damp areas.
It doesn’t seek drama, but clarity.
I love when morning light has not yet hardened, not yet asserted itself.
Here, it contributes to a feeling of gentle solitude, a sense of time stolen from the day’s noise.
It is a light that speaks to the soul more than to the eye.
The strength of detail
If you look closely at the canvas, you’ll see that the realism is never cold.
It is crossed by vibrations.
The tiles are not rigid, the feet are alive, the red of the nail polish echoes the ochres of the skin.
The stream of water is almost abstract — a white streak painted instinctively — linking head and hand.
In my work, detail is not there to show off skill.
It’s there to express what words cannot say.
The tension in a hand.
The fatigue in a neck.
The intimacy of a repetitive gesture.
A painting of intimacy
For several years now, my work has explored those intimate zones we often consider insignificant:
a girl in her bed, a bare back, a body by the lake, a silhouette under the shower.
Scenes that, at first glance, hold nothing heroic — and yet each one, in its own way, tells of the subtle link between the human and the space they inhabit.
I often think of that phrase by Gaston Bachelard: “The house is our corner of the world. It is our first universe.”
And within the house, there is the bathroom — that place of transition between the sleeping body and the social body.
It is that in-between that I wanted to capture here.
A work in its own right
The Girl at Daybreak belongs to a body of paintings where the female figure is approached with modesty — without fantasy, without cliché.
It is an autonomous figure, free, focused inward.
This painting also holds a special place in my path, as it marks a return to a more assertive frontal approach:
no blur, no evasion.
Just a tight frame, a singular scene, a body and its own temporality.
Letting the gaze breathe
Painting this way is, for me, a way to slow down.
To resist the speed of images.
To offer the viewer not a lesson, but a space —
a space where the gaze can linger, and settle within the canvas.
Perhaps this girl at daybreak will remind you of someone.
Or perhaps not.
But maybe, as you look at her, something will resonate.
Something very simple.
And very human.
Informations
Titre : La fille au lever du jour
Technic : Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions : 100 x 100 cm
Year : 2024
Original artwork available for sale
