Présentation

Central pannel

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Two paintings

This ensemble is 14 yards long, and 3.60 yards high

When exhibited, it is fitted in a semi-circle.

1. Conception

I wanted to conceive a coherent and synthetic whole. It represents the ark, and comprises 35 paintings that fit each other, plus a metalic sky, and a base designed for the structure to be transported. Each piece is an independent painting. But the viewer must see the piece of a puzzle on the wall, without feeling there is something missing.

This concept develops the idea of the interdependence between people and objects, and therefore the idea of unity and diversity.

Here are for instance 12 pieces of the puzzle that make up the left side of the central pannel.

As far as I know, this concept of a “painting-puzzle” is unique.

The Ark is painted on crude poplar planks. The technique I use to paint is close to that used by the Flemish primitives.“The painter must not paint what he sees, but what he is. It is not Reality that must be painted, but the Truth.”

The Ark presents:

-       a symbolical, synthetic and archetypal drawing.

-       Unreal colours, but having a symbolic or pictural value. I wished to saturate colours in a form of violence and “barbaric” joy, which doesn’t exclude working on nuance and depth.

-       A wrong scale where the size of animals depends on several parameters, without taking into account the real size.

-       A disappearance of depth and the Italian perspective. The Ark is a form, not a volume.

 

The adventure of the Ark ended in February 1999. I drew a number of conclusions from this experience, and decided as a consequence:

-       to continue global works, with their complexity and volumes

-       to carry on in the logic, and create a volume in which the painting is, that would free the painting from its exhibition place.

-       To continue tacking universal subjects, since they’re necessarily neither reserved to a social class nor to a special age, nor a precise painting current, nor a caste of amateurs, but subjects which enable each person to find in it whatever he sees fit, according to who he is.

-       To gather a team around me 

The 12 Exhibitions of the Ark

1-    From Mars 22nd to April 27th 1997

Théâtre Georges Leygues theater, Villeneuve-sur-lot, France

2-    From May 20th to June 15th 1997

Abbaye de Lagrasse, France

3-    From July 10th to July 29th 1997

Montpazier, France

4-    From August 1st to August 20th 1997

Salle municipale de Rignac, France

5-    From august 26th to September 16th 1997

Salle Louis Delluc (former bishopric) in Sarlat, France

6-    From March 13th  to 16th 1998

Drand hall du Parc des Expositions de Lyon, France (Rhône)

7-    From May 15th to May 27th 1998

Médiathèque de Château-Arnoux, France

8-    From July 17th to July 19th 1998

Outdoor in Sablet, France

9-    From December 5th to December 8th 1998

Théâtre de la Montagne Magique à Bruxelles, Belgium

10- From december 11th to december 13th 1998

Under a tent in the Eiffel tower "Noël des Animaux de la S.P.A." Paris, France

11- From December 15th 1998 to January 3rd 1999

Théâtre d'Esch-sur-Alzette, Luxemburg

12- January & February 1999

Foulayronnes, France