Peintre
The vanishing point allows for the beyond. Remove it, and there is only the here. There. And then time is entirely the present. The image I want is of the here, always here, which fixes the present. This image, when we are free, we cannot bear it, which leads us to invert the situation to become the vanishing point of the image: its window onto death. — Bernard Noël, Journal du regard
The painting is a kind of trap. It aims to put the viewer’s gaze under tension, to disrupt his habit, to disorient it, to prevent seeing in a circular manner, and to restore his primal wonder. Through contradictory perspectives, the vertigo of one or multiple viewpoints, an unusual confrontation of colors, it establishes a tension between the referential “real” space and the pictorial space, between the concrete and the abstract, the brushstroke and the form. Only from this tension can presence emerge, if the painting is successful. On this point, I am Cézannian.
“A painting is something quite different from an arbitrary cut-up in external reality. Because of the frame, there is a center resulting from the intersection of the two diagonals. And the artist’s skill lies in provoking the viewer’s eye to a shift, a dialogue between this geometric center and the one that, perhaps through color and drawing— but especially through something else!— emerges from the composition. I should rather say a focal point, creating a pull, a common call coming from within and addressed to all the different objects that the frame forces to do something together; and why not use the real word, a sense! which constitutes what is called the subject… it is about an idea, rebellious or not, to the formula.” — Paul Claudel, L’œil écoute
As always, the finished painting questions me. Because it is successful only in proportion to how much it has exceeded my intention. It speaks for itself. What does it teach me? This question is part of the fascination. If I compare this “Parisienne” to a painting from the “Forests” series, for example “What is brewing,” the tension between the background and the form is marked not as contrary but as very different. While with this Forest, the fluid multiplicity of tension plays in the arrangement of color touches creates a more emergent than directive perspective (forests), the Parisienne synthesizes and amplifies the tension under the unified direction of the point of view. The outline asserts itself, the authoritative form imposes itself, although here the background fights back.
“The painter’s images are not only the reflection of things and of our thoughts; they are the place where identities cross and discover each other. Thus, painting puts into our eyes a breath through which we have never looked before. This breath is the youth of the gaze. Its perpetual return.” — Bernard Noël, Journal du regard.
In the tension between reality and abstraction, the figure is born. Michel Guérin, the philosopher of “Figurology,” detects its production in the energy of the gesture. The gesture of painting, beyond representation, is fundamentally figurative.
Alongside my series on forests, I wanted to create a series on the city. The Parisian women became the focus. In contrast to the forests, where the chaotic vegetation resists any formalization of vision, this is an apologia for form that draws me in here with these passersby caught in the mineral verticality of the city. For the ideality and abstraction of form are fundamentally urban. I understand that this famous landscape seen upside down, which opened Kandinsky’s path to abstraction, naturally led him to the geometric and mineral harmony of his later works.
Post-war painting, dominated by American Abstract Expressionism and its theorist Greenberg, made the surface the truth of the pictorial work. Woe to those who did not want to flatten themselves! Like the motif, the perspective space was sidelined, and painting, apart from strong figures like Lucian Freud, Francis Bacon, Martial Raysse (second period), and others yet to be recognized, detached itself from the world. One no longer had to see but first express. Here, I look at the surface and see Parisian women passing by who play at being abstractions…
