Exhibitions

Bruno Dufourmantelle’s work is traversed by a corporeal relation with painting and the implications he has in the formulation of an absolute plasticity; this is as true of the paintings explicitly titled « Battles » as it is for the more recent works in which the image appears out of a physical confrontation with the organic aspects of pictorial materials and techniques : « I depart from black backgrounds in order to show light » , black background, light, colours, forms...

This dynamism proves the real quality of this work, whose forms (the content, the subject) do not preexist, but emerge from the void in the surface effects : « Look for beings in painting through painting ». Juxtaposed, isolated, intermingled forms that are difficult to make out (rock-like bodies, horizon-line bodies, landscape bodies) emerge from a « material of light », worked with the impressions of brushstrokes and blades (a series entitled Paysages humains, human landscapes). More-detailed hands form landmarks, while the bodies juxtapose their solitudes and their secrets-neither united nor separated.

Bruno Dufourmantelle occupies this place in which the distinction between realism and abstraction dissolves or becomes blurred, the form and the figure meld in the exploration of pictorial practice. His paintings therefore represents a memory and it refers to the emotional turbulence that a gesture can produce. The artist makes references to what we can’t say, in its capacity to create an analogy with the invisible and the unintelligible: « Paintings are interior places. I am, above all, seeking the interiority of beings and the invisible ». He thus demonstrates, here in a musical mode, that painting is a valid substitute for the depth of emotion or expression.

The first step in the secret process of alchemists in their magical quest called "the work in the dark". It consists of separating and dissolving substances for future recomposition into something rare. The three artists Nadine Altmayer, Francis Limérat and Edward Baran, have this convergence in their work. Each in its way is committed to working on the constituent, even constructive, elements of their artworks. The wefts, skeletons, bones and bones take shape and take on meaning.

As with the construction of a building, this work of structure gives their work an exceptional relationship to space, although it is almost flat. Is it volume painting or exquisite sculpture? The air becomes one of their working tools. This spatiality is a breath that brings balance to the dark masses. Because here too, these three artists find themselves in the use of a palette that appears to be reduced to black.

By the reflections or absence of reflections on surfaces, shadows, transparencies, contrasts are proof that light is essential and unbreakable. These artists have the formidable technical accuracy of mastering the elements they implement as well as those they invite. Air and light are their "collateral materials".

These back and forth between destruction with a view to reconstruction. The play with concrete elements and others only induced. The shared desire to create pieces that offer a robust spatial presence shows that these three artists have touched on the success of alchemy and that the blackwork is indeed their material.

François Kenesi