Michel Carmantrand, 2019.

Click on a pic to enlarge it. / Another year by clicking on 'older posts' at the foot of the page. / Link to Papers and Curated shows at the bottom.






Small (mirror image), 32x32cm (12.5x12.5"), cardboard, cut-out, collage, 2019.
This little thing is insists and imposes itself on me like an enigma or a maze or a ... i don't know what. To tell the truth, at the risk of seeming completely stupid, i don't see anymore or don't remember how it was made; just sure that it's more complex than it seems. / Small (image), 32x32cm (12.5x12.5"), cardboard, cutout, collage, 2019.


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Vertigo, 2019, 24x18cm (9.5x7.9"), acrylic and oil on canvas; currently on it's way to Philly as a present for somebody i don't know but who likes it sincerely i believe.
Vertigo, 2019, 24x18cm (9.5x7.9"), acrylic and oil on canvas; currently on it's way to Philly as a present for somebody i don't know but who likes it sincerely i believe.

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Fff, spray paint and oil on canvas

Assumption: some images are slower than others (images which are reflected and developed in the conscious or unconscious perception of the observer ((Mr. Smith goes to the museum))), when it comes to them to crossing the aesthetic fields to which they are dedicated, addressed, without counting those, incidents, involuntarily activated by the always partial apprehension of the artist at work. If some images are slower than others, some others are therefore necessarily faster and sometimes have the ability to scratch, or even perforate the surfaces that constitute them. To present Fff in this way seems extremely ambitious to me, I am aware of it, but that does not automatically imply that this statement is wrong. Let's see.

Hypothèse : certaines images sont plus lentes que d’autres lorsqu’il s’agit pour elles, qui se reflètent et s’élaborent dans la perception consciente ou inconscientes de l’observateur (Monsieur Smith va au musée), de traverser le ou les champs esthétiques auxquels elles sont dédiées, adressées, sans compter ceux, incidents, involontairement activés par l’appréhension toujours partielle de l’artiste au travail. Si certaines images sont plus lentes que d’autres, certaines autres sont donc nécessairement plus rapides et possèdent parfois la capacité de rayer, ou même de perforer les surfaces qui les constituent. Présenter Fff de cette manière me semble extrêmement ambitieux, j’en suis conscient, mais cela n’implique pas de façon automatique que cette assertion soit erronée. Voyons voir. Il me faut préciser qu’ici les notions de lenteur et de rapidité, bref, de "vitesse", n’entretiennent à peu près aucune relation avec le concept de "temps", mais qu’elles ont plus à voir avec l’élaboration esthétique développée en son temps par Aby Warburg.


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Cacaw the macaw, acrylic on folded paper.
 Cacaw the macaw, 2019, 140x140x80cm (55x55x31.5"), acrylic and fold paper.

Cacaw the macaw, 2019, 140x140x80cm (55x55x31.5"), acrylic and fold paper. / The entanglement of shape and color makes this object elusive, intangible, in that it is not better visible from the front or from the sides, or from above or below, and so on. Also, through the proper virtue of a folded surface, it has no inside or outside. Strange thing, but let's say that it  is a polychrome sculpture hanging on the wall.


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Albers, acrylic and oil on canvas.
Chromatic circle, 2019 / a lill devious tribute to Josef Albers / 40x40cm (15.8x15.8"), acrylic and oil on canvas.  

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Dols, 50x50x4cm (19.7x19.7x1.6"), pigment, acrylic and oil on canvas.
How i sold Dols. / What i find cool is to start a painting on Sunday morning, thinking let's do something a little bit complex and tricky about the Renaissance and the so called 'figuration', that it was finished at 4 pm, and that's perfect because the guests arrive at 7 pm and we had to take care of the dinner and so on. It was a lively and funny evening and at the end a couple of these friends bought the painting and went home with it... Well, that would have been the Walt Disney version, because for sure the oil was still wet and i'll bring the painting to them in a week, but for the rest it really happened like that, as it should happen every day: a gsw (Good-Sunday-Workday), a good dinner with friends and a sale before going to bed, around 1 or 2 am, I don't remember. / Dols, 50x50x4cm (19.7x19.7x1.6"), pigment, acrylic and oil on canvas.


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House, cut-out and gouache on cardboard box.
House, cut-out and gouache on cardboard box.
 


Summer homework 2019: House, 47x42x30cm (18.5x16.5x11.8"), acrylic and oil on cut cardboard box. / In a certain way, a house is a volume, often a parallelepiped, perforated with openings, parallelograms. / This therefore must be a house built on a cliff. Beware of the falls!


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Lemme tell ya its a killa, acrylic on paper
Lemme tell ya its a killa, acrylic on paper.

'Lemme tell ya it's a killa' (flattened prism), 2019; 150x410cm (59x161"), acrylic on paper. / A close friend had the good idea to give me a big piece of Fabriano... Thanks, Barbara! / It is by looking at 'Lipton', previously posted, that I grasped that there is an obvious, and perhaps even necessary, relationship between the two works, this one being a sort of projection of the first, its representation in two dimensions. Of course the two things are crossed by my wild imaginings concerning the fundamentally abstract nature of any image, figurative or not, and by the references to the pre-Renaissance Italian painting... one is as one is and one remains it.

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Lipton, gouache on a Lipton box.
Lipton, gouache on a Lipton box.


Summer homework 2019; Lipton, 30x9x7cm (12x3.6.3x2.8"); gouache on Lipton's tea box, turned inside out. / Or how a little color can slow down, accelerate, transform, the perception of a volume in space.

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His hands, oil on canvas

His hands. I made this lill painting for Barbara, who invited us yesterday, Laurence Grave and i, to a donner recalling the death of her man, Mathias Wild, close friend, good painter, good drawer, acute and witty intelligence. He passed away October 21, two years ago. The oil was still wet but we found a way to transport the painting. Mathias's hands, 30x24cm (11.8x9.5"), marker, acrylic and oil on canvas.


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Migrant, acrylic on cardboard box, cut-out.
Migrant, acrylic on cardboard box, cut-out.
 


Migrant, 110x90x43cm (43x35.5x17"), acrylic and Gesso on folded cardboard, 2019. / Laurence Grave and i have plans to leave Berlin and move to Brussels. We had found a good place and i was starting to pack our stuff, but eventually things went awry and we will start looking again next year. Well, then, i used one of the moving boxes...


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Oily trinity, cut-out, silicone and oil on canvas
Oily trinity, cut-out, silicone and oil on canvas


There are days like this, in the invigorating sunlight of which i still can't find the strength, the courage ... the energy, the desire, let's say, to write even a very short comment in order to escort the photo that i will post. It's true that to write three shabby lines in English, that would take fifteen seconds to a native, costs me thirty-one minutes of work and reflection, with a good automatic translator at hand. And please don't think i'm exaggerating. And yet we know that a small text may be important to the extent that it accompanies, that it introduces the wonderful apparition of a brand new, fragile being, just as a midwife also participates, and actively! of the terrestrial emerging of a form that is both common and particular, banal, but also unique, in a way, perhaps, who knows. Some excuse themselves from doing it. From the comment i mean. It is a birth without blessing. Some also don't give infos about technique and dimensions, which i find a shame. Some even scorn the hashtags! which are to Instagram what the gas is to Rolls-Royce. Without petrol, the most opulent car, the most expensive one is just a pile of scrap soon rusty.  But finally, if they are satisfied with their twelve 'likes' at the end of the day, it's good for them as for me, huh, i don't really care. That said, sometimes one tries to do well, one pushes... nothing comes ... We bend, we stoop, we focus ... nada. It must be a form of mental constipation. Which is better after all than to indulge in a chatty verbiage, prolix and incoherent. Because as you see i strongly disapprove these kind of verbal diarrhea that is only there to deceive, as if nothing else mattered but to fill the space with disjointed sounds, or to stain the page with ink and signs. / The oily trinity, 2019; 24x18cm (9.5x7.9"), 28x22cm (11x8.7"), 30x24cm (11.8x9.5"), cut-out, collage, acrylic, silicon and oil on canvas.




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Raw material for a cannibal feast, paper and acrylic.
Raw material for a cannibal feast, paper and acrylic.




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Sunset, glycerophtalic paint and oil on canvas.
Sunset, 185x185cm (73x73"), glycerophtalic paint and oil on canvas.




The rise and fall of the academism (sunset), 2019, 185x185cm (73x73"), enamel and oil on canvas, cut, video (visible on Instagram: @michelcarmantrand).

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Eggs, plaster and cast
Eggs

Resemblance is a true issue (though not necessarily seen or apprehended from the right place). As i think of the touching baby that we wonder, hardly out of the womb, if he looks more like Dad or Mom or Grandma, or thinking for example, among many others, of the German approach (nose: hooked) or of American one (skin: black, red, yellow, green) of discrimination, it appears that the question is complex and would have to be examined with caution. Try for instance to make a cake with these eggs. In very very short, skipping the intermediate steps, maybe that common and banal neurotic fantasy is less linked to what brings (us) together than to what excludes, and that if we hasten so much to find some resemblance to the infant's face, it is perhaps to prevent ourself from hating the stranger. A matter of proportions, a quota story.

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Three:


Three, oil and cut-out on canvas


Three, 2019; 24x18cm each (9.5x7.1"), cut-out, collage, acrylic and oil on canvas.


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Untitled, acrylic paint on prepared tarpaulin.
Untitled, 300x400cm (118x157"), acrylic paint and oil on prepared (gesso) tarpaulin.
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LIHT, ink, acrylic and oil on canvas




LIHT, acrylic and oil on canvas
LIHT ; 185x185cm (73x73") ; acrylic and oil on canvas. / In certain conditions the light, similar to the paint, streams. / When I was a child, I was saying to myself that it was normal for the light to fall, flow, trickle, sweat, stream and drip on the surface of things and beings, since it came from the sun, which is finally a big ball of gas and burning liquid material... No, it's a trick, being a child, I never thought of such things. / The light blinds, too.
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Cardboards, fold, cut, cardboard, staples, glue, acrylic, oil, gesso and so on.
Cardboards, folds, cutout, cardboard, staples, glue, acrylic, oil, gesso. Printed or blank the cardboard is a beautiful and sensitive material, together flexible, rigid, light, ductile and resistant, whose the subtle colors, hints and shades as well as its varied surfaces provide and suggest an infinite number of plastic and pictorial possibilities. The soft way it welcomes and collects light is also often surprising. It is a medium that allows in a very fair and simple way to work (simultaneously and with pleasure) the surface, the two-dimensionality and the volume (if you see the volume as a grouping of surfaces).


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After Giotto, matt black on shiny black on folded shaped cardboard.
Summer homework 2019: After Giotto; two phases and some aspects. / Around 48x45x30cm (19x17.7x11.8"), matt black on shiny black on folded shaped cardboard. / It is during my current small stay in France, visiting my mother of 95 years (but fit), that we had a short polemical discussion. She systematically criticizes black, especially when it comes to clothes. She finds black sinister, for her it's the absolute di-sas-ter, Death and so on, even worse if possible... As she is not at all interested in art and or painting we have naturally different points of view on the matter. Well, as she repeated that old tune for the ten thousandth time, I told her that color was a very subjective substance, made up largely of symbolism, language and memory, like the world and the reality, and that perhaps she had given a terrible meaning to that color on the basis of unpleasant repeated experiences. But as she gives no worth to the reasoning, she remained on her position: the black is horrible, a point that's all. And on that I did 'After Giotto'. Everything is pretty simple, after all. I dare not imagine what she can think of my cartons, she for whom art stops at bunches of flowers well done, without black.
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Portable anthropology:
Portable anthropology, paint, oil, acrylic, gesso, wood, plaster, cut, paper, cardboard, collage, glue, pen, and so on.
Portable anthropology: paint, oil, acrylic, gesso, wood, plaster, cut, paper, cardboard, charcoal, ink, tape, flint, collage, glue, pen, and so on. 1996-2019. A kind of temporary synthesis.
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Foot, plaster cast of my foot wrapped in aluminum foil.
Plaster cast of my foot wrapped in aluminum foil.
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The hand of my mother, synthetic clay
The hand of my mother, synthetic clay
The hand of my mother, synthetic clay.
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Both, gesso and oil and dirt on canvas 50x50cm (19.7x19.7").
Both, gesso and oil and dirt on canvas 50x50cm (19.7x19.7").
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Cardboard boxes, acrylic and oil on folded cardboard boxes.
Cardboard boxes, acrylic and oil on folded cardboard boxes.
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The square, acrylic and oil on canvas.
The square, acrylic and oil on canvas, 20x20cm (7.9x7.9").
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The cave, matt anthracite grey paint on shiny metal can.
The Cave. It must be a vague reminiscence of Plato that led me to this... as I found a ten-liter can in the backyard. / Matt charcoal grey paint and lacquer paint on and with shiny metal volume. / Where the depth, where the surface, hollow/domed, hole-gap/bump-hump. / One learns a lot, as a painter, in working on a reflective mirroring and deformed surface; but it is out of the question to make it a specialty. We only really learn by varying approaches and mediums, by changing tools and perspectives, at least as far as I am concerned.
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Dialectic extent, air dry clay.
Dialectic extent, 18x18x19cm (7x7x7.4"), air dry clay.
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Fragment, collage, cut, montage, glue, acrylic, oil on paper and cardboard.
Fragment, collage, cut, montage, glue, acrylic, oil on paper and cardboard.
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Summer homeworks, with paper, gouache and Fabriano
Summer homework with paper, 140x145x40cm (55x57x15.7"), gouache on Fabriano.
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Two parts, Kermolin and wood
Two parts, 25x19cm (10x7.5"), Kermolin and wood.
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The three musketeers, third version, Gesso, acrylic, spray, Bic and oil on canvas.
Narrowing and stressing the white in that third version of the The three musketeers. / 100x80x4cm (39.4x31.5x1.6") each. Gesso, acrylic, spray, Bic and oil on canvas.
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The three musketeers, second version, d'Artagnan, Aramis, Portho and Athos. Gesso, acrylic, spray, tape, Bic and cut linen mounted on canvas.
The three musketeers, second version. 100x80x4cm (39.4x31.5x1.6") each. From left to right, d'Artagnan, Aramis, Portho and Athos. Gesso, acrylic, spray, tape, Bic and cut linen mounted on canvas. It is possible that another version, not so clean, is being cooking in the cellars...
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The three musketeers, Gesso, acrylic, spray, Bic and cut linen mounted on canvas.
The three musketeers, 100x80x4cm (39.4x31.5x1.6") each. From left to right, d'Artagnan, Porthos, Athos and Aramis. Gesso, acrylic, spray, Bic and cut linen mounted on canvas.
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Pinocchio, acrylic and oil on cut folded cardboard box.
Summer homework 2019: Pinocchio, 47x44x19cm (18.5x17.3x7.5"), acrylic and oil on cut and folded cardboard box. / The title came at the very end, but i still have no idea why it should be called 'Pinocchio'. Perhaps because of the vague resemblance to a head and or face, or because of the colors (a reminiscence of the animated film of the past, who knows...). Or perhaps because of the particular solitude of this sculting (sculpture-painting) hanging in the center of this bare empty wall. After all, Pinocchio is made of wood, he is just a doll, but he is a monster since he comes alive. Monsters must feel very lonely, sometimes. It is also possible that it comes from the repetition of the word 'eye' in the original title of the novel: Occhio a Pinocchio. Whoswhat's watching Whatswho? Or... Awww, it's ok, enough with these wooly assumptions.
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Starfish, lacquer paint on  shaped and folded aluminum sheet.
Starfish ; 2019; 55x55x27cm (21.7x21.7x10.6 "); lacquer paint on  shaped and folded aluminum sheet. / A long long time ago I had the opportunity, often, to dive with a snorkel and to observe the slow, mysterious life of all sorts of starfishes that lived in the lagoon, laying on the 'madrepore' (coral reef). Their moving immobility fascinated me. And it seems that forty-nine years after, that memory remained me. / But, well well well, all that is a kind of pleasant nonsense, what matters is to be able to see what happens on a painted surface, between it and us, insofar as the thing concerns (looks at) us.
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Tabouret, Gesso and oil on ceramic clay.
Tabouret, Gesso and oil on ceramic clay.
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Taste a mint; 185x185cm (73x73 ") ; lacquer paint, oil and spray on canvas. / I believe I have gathered here what I know and see about painting as art and as a practice. It welcomes the gaze as much as it disconcerts it, deforms it by informing it differently, of intellectual and perceptive possibilities existing elsewhere in the everyday life, but which are rarely made clear and visible, comprehensible and active. Picasso said: 'La peinture, c'est l'intelligence' (painting is intelligence). That seems to me correct if one understands by this that this intelligence exists at first in the crossing of the glances. But I'm afraid that Picasso, ambitious and egocentric as he was, thought that way only for himself. (:-)    
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U, Gesso, charcoal, lacquer paint and oil on wooden box.
U, Gesso, charcoal, lacquer paint and oil on wooden box.
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Unreadable, lacquer paint, oil and spray on canvas.
Monique Grave next to Unreadable, 185x185cm (73x73"), lacquer paint, oil and spray on canvas. / Dedicated to Carol McMahon, who after my 'Jews' had suggested to me to paint a 'Catholics'...
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Watershed, acrylic on prepared (gesso) tarpaulin.
Watershed, 300x200cm (118x78.7"), acrylic on prepared (gesso) tarpaulin.
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Stack of stripes, acrylic on prepared (gesso) tarpaulin.
2019, Stack of stripes, 300x200cm (118x78.7"), acrylic on prepared (gesso) tarpaulin.

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Opening, some works, acrylic on tarp and cut on cardboard in Stefan Schröter's studio.
Opening. I had little presentation in Stefan Schröter's studio. Acrylic on tarp, cut, oil on cardboard, plaster in aluminium box.





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Untitled, painted clay and oil on fabric on wall.
2019, untitled. / It was time to synthesize my experience by bringing together, but in a distinct way, the themes that occupy me: the surface, the language and the address (to the observer, to the other). That is to say, to dissociate previously the elements (of the perception), then to connect them again during a specific, artificial, aesthetic operation, condensing in an artistic result the perceptual components of the real. A result whose observer would not be excluded. / Painted clay and oil on fabric on wall, 40x40cm (18x18").
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Only a merry can deem, lacquer paint on tarpaulin.

2019, Only a merry can deem 1 and 2. / It was after having a good laugh at a ridiculous collector who had bought the work of an artist for the only purpose of making it disappear (because he considered that this very beautiful painting on free canvas undermined the dignity of the American flag), that I decided to produce "only a merry can deem". In his first version as in his second version, it was necessary that certain accents were logically linked to each other, in order to produce a consistent formal work, and on the other hand not to give fools the opportunity to believe that it might damage the dignity of the American flag. This work is, of course, not for sale. / 400x300cm (157.5x118") and 298x400cm (117x157"), lacquer paint on tarpaulin.
 


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Muffler II, synthetic air dry clay on Colt .45 gun.
After Walther, black silicone on Walther P-88 gun, 2018, below, came Muffler, 27x15x5cm (10.6x6x2"), synthetic air dry clay on Colt .45 gun, 2019. A few years ago, when my father passed away, choking on a bite of cake, my mother and I had to deal with a large trunk full of weapons, grenades and ammunition that he, military, had brought back from each conflict he took part: Algeria, Germany, Indochina, Madagascar, and I certainly forget something. We gave the weapons to the police and I kept the pistol he had found in Germany in the ruins of a battlefield, in memory of the Memory. 


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Notre-Dame, gesso and acrylic on tarpaulin
This is a little documentation on the making of Notre-Dame, a video about the fall of the  spire. The video itself is to be seen on Instagram: @michelcarmantrand.


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Ideal hiker, 2019, oil on tarpaulin.
Ideal hiker, 200x300cm (78.7x118"), oil on tarpaulin. I made a painting for our favorite coffee: Erika & Hilde, Weigandufer 9, Berlin, Germany. The project, specific, consisted of transposing into a painting the space, the architecture and the ambient light of the place, to react with them and to bring inside something else, but connected with these "data". Ideal hiker is the anagram of Erika and of Hilde. Thanks to Christine and Ralf.


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2parts, Gesso, Bic, acrylic and oil on cardboard
2parts, Gesso, Bic, acrylic and oil on prepped cardboard

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The inside and the outside, ceramic and plaster
The inside and the outside, two parts around 20x11cm (7.9x4.3"), ceramic and plaster
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Sketch for a bigger painting, Gesso, pigments and acrylic on tarp.

Sketch for a bigger painting, 460x600cm (181x236"), Gesso, pigments and acrylic on tarp.

Open, I post it as a draft for a future painting: Gesso, pigments and acryl on tarp.
I'm afraid that I wasn't clear enough in my head at the start of the project, especially on the choice of colors. I groped a bit and it affected the result. Moreover, my constitutional dyslexia made me make a big mistake in that I reversed the letters correctly so that I could keep the traditional sense of reading in the result, by flipping the sheets of under the edges of the tarpaulin, but I wrote the word itself as a mirror image and ... well, my English is not good enough to explain it, but in short, I messed up. I post it as a draft for a future painting, similar but better done, and probably larger.


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Crumpled, 300x400cm (118x157"), Gesso and pigments on tarpaulin
Crumpled, variable dimensions, Gesso and pigments on tarpaulin.

 

Separating physically, by cutting, volume and distance, two elements which at the beginning were but one: a flat surface entirely painted and traversed by a network of stripes. Therefore obtaining two distinct forms, visually united however with a recognizable pattern on the "volume" and on the "frame". Does it work, and how can we name the result? Painting, Installation? Sculpture? Naming things is an important part of the activity of those concerned with art, but also of all those who are not interested in art. It is a basic fact.

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Home, Gesso and pigments on tarpaulin

Home, Gesso and pigments on tarpaulin
Home, 300x400cm (118x157"), Gesso and pigments on tarpaulin


Illusionism seems to me to be one of the major and original characteristics of painting. It seems healthy to keep some distance from it, but vain to deny it for the sake of and conceptual purity, all the more so since this deliberate distinction is often only a result of a desire for valorization and socio-aesthetic distinction. The great struggle between abstraction and figuration seems to me nowadays particularly obsolete. It all depends on the project and the subject of the painting. Home is a counterpart to Ideal hiker. One is below, the other is up, both of them respond to a real space: how does it work? Ideal hiker had to be hung relatively high in the the bar, that's why it was conceived as a  low-angle shot. To learn a little more about the position of a painting on a wall, in a space, I decided to place Home at ground level and take the baseboard into account in the project. In these two paintings, everything had to be as true as it is false. It is a flat painting that deals with the perspective of the room in which it is hung.


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Window, aluminium box and plaster
Window, 17x18x11cm (6.7x7x3.3"),  aluminium box and plaster
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Surfacesupport, j'adore, acrylic and découpage on tarp.
Surfacesupport j'adore, 300x400x300cm (118x157x118"), acrylic and découpage on tarp.
I took up the classic theme of the window in the painting as window and applied to it a more concrete solution than in the illusionist practice, by cutting the material. The surface was painted entirely, and behind, I painted the shape respecting the texture, the ductus of the front. If one is not attentive to the hinge function of the bottom of the canvas, one can believe that the painted surface was simply cut off, and the cut placed at the bottom of the tarpaulin on the ground, which is not the case. The title refers naturally to the artistic movement Supports/Surfaces.

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untitled, découpage and acrylic on tarpaulin.
untitled, 300x400cm (118x157"), découpage and acrylic on tarpaulin

Normally the numbers are written one after the other. They are juxtaposed and written serially, chronologically, in a certain way. So that they are recognizable and understandable, either to form numbers, to carry out operations, to specify a date or a result, they must keep always the same shape, with variations of fonts. What could I do with 1, 2 and 3 that leads to a particular form from which the conventional meaning would be excluded? Just overlay them. I had already made an attempt in this direction in 2017, with letters (pic below), by writing all the letters of the alphabet on a square canvas, but turning the frame on the right with each new letter.

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Full Hole, lacquer paint on tarpaulin.
Full Hole, 300x400cm (118x157.5"), lacquer paint on tarpaulin

How can a hole be full? By the contrast of dark and bright, we can evoke a hole. The use of a color close to black (here, the color is a dark matt brown named "basalt" by the manufacturer) returns to the shade, to the hollow. The symbolism of black echoes emptiness, so death. It is thus an illusionist painting, but only partially, since the concrete aspect of the surface as well as the visible, visible manifestation of the color itself in no way negates the materiality of the result. By cutting the tarpaulin and its position in space, it is the wall itself that becomes a painting, as well as what is painted. The volume of the room stresses this disposition.
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CUT, oil on tarpaulin
CUT, 300x400cm (118x157.5"), oil on tarpaulin


CUT is a piece that, with its soft letters, plays with the boundaries between painting, installation and sculpture. Reflection and a kind of mirror image also play a big role in it. How to figure the backside of a letter?

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Sketch for a forthcoming painting on tarpaulin, marker, ochre and découpage on cardboard
Sketch for a forthcoming painting on tarpaulin, 70x43cm (27.5x17"), marker, ochre and découpage on cardboard

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Are they deers there Dear?, découpage and oil on prepared cardboard.
Are they deers there Dear?, 80x59cm (31.5x23.3"), découpage and oil on prepared cardboard.

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SEA, oil on tarpaulin, découpage
SEA, 300x400cm (118x157.5"), oil on tarpaulin
SEA, oil on tarp
SEA, tarpaulin and oil
SEA, blue oil on tarp
SEA, tarpaulin and blue
SEA, tarp, oil
Sky, oil on canvas
Sky, 2017
I had kept a little stencil from the making of a tondo in 2016 or 2017. I knew it would be useful in one way or another. And it was by seeing him again recently that I thought that with his help I could expand and develop my questions about the nature of surfaces in their relationship to language. Let's not forget that the sea is blue when the sky is blue.

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Anagram, oil on tarp, 2019
Anagram (TRAP-PART-RAPT-TARP-PRAT),300x400cm (118x157.5"), oil on tarpaulin

How to reconcile painting and language, plastically speaking? It quickly appears that it is a "mission impossible" and an illusion. On one hand because the monochromatic surface (although modulated and so to speak degraded by the movement of the brush) is broken by the inscription of the white letters (painted in reserve, which means they are not "painted", but that they appear by default), on the other hand because the multiple meanings of an isolated word are increased when this word is inscribed alone on a painted surface of rather large size , not just with ink or pencil on a sheet of classic white paper. The result will necessarily be a hybrid and, from a certain point of view, a monster. 


Since a few years (around 2014) a question arises to me with some insistence. And this question changed the direction of my work, which has become the tool that allows me to develop this question: the pictorial image is not made up to 99% of words? Is not language central in the painter's production just as much in the reception of his works? Does color exist, or is it composed of 99% of symbolic, and thus linguistic relations?

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untitled, glass bottle, ceramic clay, acrylic color
untitled, 2018-2019


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untitled, oil on paper
untitled, oil on paper


The initial project was to paint the word wall on a wall. But it seemed to me that it was either too stupid or not stupid enough. So I decided to paint it first on a large sheet of paper; but I found myself in front of the same problem: the meaning of the word was not enough "peeling off" from the surface to activate the ambiguity of the information. It was necessary to introduce an additional distance between the wall and the wall, the concept and the reality of the concrete and plaster. Fortunately, the paper has found the solution: by taking back the form of the roll, as I had bought, it has folded on itself at the bottom, right and left.

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Feedback sketch, pencil on watercolor paper
Feedback sketch
Square, oil on wood frame
Square, oil paint, wood frame
Square
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Perceptive scheme, oil and marker on prepared board
Perceptive scheme, 50x40cm (20x15.8"), oil and marker on prepared board

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To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture, gouache and clay
To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture, gouache and clay, 2019
To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture, gouache and clay
To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture, clay, gouache, acrylic mastic
To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture, clay, gouache, acrylic mastic
To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture,  gouache, clay, acrylic mastic
To Pollock, polychrome project for a monumental sculpture, clay, gouache, acrylic mastic

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The fin, white clay and acrylic
The fin, white clay and acrylic
The fin, white clay and acrylic
The finl, white clay and acrylic
The fin, white clay and acrylic. I had to develop satisfactorily, analogically and stylistically, the mass, the image and the metaphor of a dorsal fin, without losing sight of the fact that it was above all the question of producing a sculpture, which meant that I had to find the right shape, fitting the adequate contact with the support (thus to treat the question of the base) and the scale relatively to the space and to the body of the observer. From my point of view, when an artefact ten centimeters high finally seems to reach ten meters, it is a sculpture. And when the same thing seems to measure exactly ten centimeters, it's an object.

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The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp, December18-January19
The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil paint on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil colors on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil on a thin, transparent tarp
The diver, oil color on a thin, transparent tarp
sketches:
Sketches for The diver, bic on paper
Sketches for The diver, bic on paper
Sketches for The diver, bic on paper
Sketches for The diver, bic on paper
Sketches for The diver, bic on paper
Sketches for The diver, pen on paper
Sketches for The diver, bic on paper


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Two, plaster
Two, plaster
Two, plaster
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Box:

Box, box and plaster
Box, box and plaster


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Two glasses, plaster
Two glasses, plaster.

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Double shot in the rain forest, 60x50cm (23.6x19.7"), oil on board
Double shot in the rain forest, 60x50cm (23.6x19.7"), oil on board
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DEEP TREAT
The project was to tackle some points of the today ambiant morality through partly narrative work (a visit to the museum), partly cutting, collage and montage. Then: criticism, provocation, sexuality, references, quotations, irony, disrespect, aggressiveness and so on.

DEEP TREAT, 2019- 2018, oil paint, lacquer and blue pen on bound notebook 62 x 42 cm (24.4x16.5 "), 59 pages.

DEEP TREAT, 2019-2018, oil paint, lacquer and blue pen on bound notebook 62 x 42 cm (24.4x16.5 "), 59 pages.