Felicità: The Mediterranean Equals Happiness… Or Does It?

A new thought-provoking exhibition at Cannes’ Le Suquet des Artistes begs reflection on what pleasure really means.

When Marion Charlet’s exhibition Felicità opened at Le Suquet des Artistes in Cannes in early July, it promised 39 watercolour paintings of the gentle Mediterranean way of life, and it keeps its promise. Between contemporary villas, lush gardens, swimming pools and abundant vegetation, the artist creates landscapes on the border between the real and the imaginary. Idealised places evoke travel, abundance, and escape – hence the title “Happiness”. But the exhibition, which runs through 10 January 2027, also asks an unspoken question: What is happiness?

In Felicità, colour does the talking first, closely followed by objects that represent luxury and refinement. Marion Charlet sets out villas, pools, tiled terraces, and lush nature in bright, almost insistent tones, the sort of clear light that recalls a holiday postcard. 

^{Paralia, 2026, Acrylique sur toile
92×73 cm
© Adagp Paris 2026}

^{Conversations, 2021, Acrylique sur toile
150×150 cm
© Collection privée, Adagp Paris 2026}

^{Chat, oranges, fleurs, 2024, Acrylique sur toile
162×130 cm
© Adagp Paris 2026}

Only after the eye has settled into these sunlit arrangements does the subtle fact emerge that, bar the occasional lone figure, rarely anyone appears in them. The loungers, tables and doorways are ready, but human life stays offstage, inviting the viewer to consider where happiness really resides: in immaculate settings and curated objects, or in the people and exchanges that never quite enter these frames. 

Charlet’s way of working explains a great deal about these carefully prepared scenes. She begins with her own photographs, often of architecture and designed outdoor spaces, then treats them as raw material rather than finished views, recomposing and refining until they become places that feel both specific and imagined. Her eye for building lines and volumes has been developed by working from the dialogue between photography and architecture, and she uses painting to bring the two together on her own terms. 

It may not be a coincidence that the paintings depict typical scenes along the Riviera which, behind its ostensible material wealth, often hides a darker, lonelier side. 

The Mediterranean is not terra incognita for Marion Charlet, who obtained a degree at the Villa Arson in Nice. She also studied and trained at the prestigious Institut Supérieur des Arts Appliqués in her hometown of Paris. A period spent at the Chelsea College of Art and Design in London, however, had a lasting influence on her work and strengthened her interest in painting. If her carefully framed perspectives inevitably recall David Hockney, it is for good reason. Marion Charlet’s work is inspired by the late British artist – that other master of gleaming water and composed leisure. Her own scenes are thereby placed within a wider tradition of painters who explore the allure, and the limits, of staged perfection.

Marion Charlet is a technically sophisticated painter whose art-historical lineage is taken seriously: her work is consistently exhibited, has won awards, and was nominated for notable prizes. In previous exhibitions, one critic described entering her paintings as being “propelled into the heart of a daydream we don’t own”, invoking a kind of psychoanalytic sinking into visions of absence, silence and waiting. And another labelled one of her shows l’Eden concentrationnaire – “concentration camp-like Eden” – which is a striking phrase suggesting these paradise spaces carry something darker underneath. 

An exhibition of this kind of art is perfectly housed at the Suquet des Artistes. Deliberately left industrial in style as a nod to its past as a municipal morgue, Charlet’s bright, carefully staged worlds find an unexpected but fitting home in this sombre whitewashed stone vault where the veil between what is and what is not remains equally fluid.

Le Suquet des Artistes has become one of Cannes’ most reliable places to encounter contemporary French painting and photography off the main tourist circuit. The exhibition space gives emerging and established artists time and room to engage with a public that may not usually be found in the more refined and traditional venues of the Croisette, in line with Mayor David Lisnard’s long-standing push to make art both accessible and genuinely interesting to all. Felicità slips neatly into that programme, which has previously featured exhibitions by Boris Wilensky, Gilles Miquelis, and Min Jung Yeon, to name but a few. 

VISITOR INFORMATION

Marion Charlet: Felicità | Through Sunday, 10 January 2027

Opening hours:

• JULY / AUGUST: daily from 10 am to 6 pm
• FROM SEPTEMBER: Tuesday to Sunday from 10 am to 1 pm and from 2 pm to 6 pm

Admission: Full price €4.50, concessions available

Guided visits available, call for details

VENUE DETAILS

Le Suquet des Artistes
7 rue Saint-Dizier
06400 Cannes

Tel: +33 (0)4 97 06 45 21
Website

PHOTO CREDITS

• Lead image © Mairie de Cannes
• All other images courtesy Ville de Cannes and as credited
• Photo of Marion Charlet © Pierre Douaire

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