Chef's taste for painting puts show on menu

Published on Saturday 3 October 2009 11:15

HE'S made his name creating some of the finest French meals in the Capital.

Now Pierre Levicky has switched canvas and is using completely different ingredients to wow the Edinburgh public.

He is set to launch his first solo art exhibition next week, but it's far from the landscape images he used to work on with his father many years ago in France.

The 50-year-old chef and restaurateur has developed a technique called body imprint, a bizarre fusion of paintings and people.

It sees a huge canvas painted with a background, then a person covered in body paint lie on it in a certain pose, leaving behind a print in the shape of their figure.

The New Town man, who was behind the Pierre Victoire chain of restaurants which at its height had 140 UK outlets, has been practising the process for around a year, and has now accumulated enough works to put on an exhibition, which will go ahead for four days from 9 October at the Dundas Gallery.

He said: "I'm both nervous and excited, I've not done anything like this, only some exhibitions many years ago in France with my father.

"I have shown my work to quite a few people and the reaction has been good – if it had not been I do not think I would have gone ahead with it.

"I started about a year ago; I've always seen something in the human shape that intrigues me, and people who have been in the paintings are very happy with the result."

Mr Levicky carries out the work in his New Town home studio, and said attracting volunteers was not the easiest thing, although complete nudity is not required for the final painting to be a success.

He still keeps his hand in full-time at the restaurant, and said there were some similarities between the two interests.

After a spell away from the Capital, he returned to open his Chez Pierre restaurant in February 2008 on Eyre Place.

"With cooking you are always trying to balance things like pepper and butter to create the best, and with painting it is the same," the restaurateur said. "First of all you create a finished painting as a background, and then it is always a bit of a risk when the person goes on top – but you both want to create something special so there is always a way for it to work.

"It is a special thing because the person is then in the painting - each one is very unique, and even with the same paint and the same person you can never create the same thing twice.

"This is something I very much enjoy, it is more than a hobby, and if it is just a hobby, it's a very demanding one," added Mr Levicky

For more information on the upcoming exhibition, visit www.body-imprint.com.

• www.pierrelevicky.co.uk