Le plaisir de l’harmonie

Certains artistes, dans tous les arts, arrivent à créer des oeuvres qui dégagent un faux sentiment de facilité, d’évidence. La peinture d’Olivier Chevalier en fait partie: chaque oeuvre propose des harmonies et des équilibres qui semblent aller de soi… Un sentiment de plaisir partagé qui demande évidemment une grande maîtrise de son sujet.

Au départ, une ambiance colorée, une harmonie qui accroche le regard. Et puis l’oeil se plonge dans la toile et entraperçoit ici, une maison qui se devine, là un visage, parfois un paysage de forêt ou de montagne. 

Olivier Chevalier essaie de tenir en équilibre cette double attirance: une harmonie abstraite et quelques éléments figuratifs, qui se lisent dans ce sens-là: le figuratif n’est pas (ou rarement) l’élément premier, il vient juste pour permettre de s’attarder un peu plus sur la toile.

L’artiste le dit clairement: “Je ne pars jamais d’un sujet. Je ne veux aucune contrainte au départ, je mets de la matière, je recouvre, j’étale, je râcle parfois jusqu’à retrouver le bois, je rajoute des pigments ou du décapant, je change d’outil, je cherche jusqu’à ce qu’une ambiance se dégage”.

Olivier Chevalier a dû patienter pour parvenir à cet équilibre, pour des raisons liées à l’acceptation de ce que l’on fait et de ce que l’on est. 

Pendant des années, il a donc mené de front son travail artistique d’un côté, et un travail de designer d’espaces commerciaux de l’autre: “C’est pour cela que dans mon travail artistique, je ne veux m’imposer aucune contrainte: c’était un contre-point au travail d’aménagement intérieur qui, lui, au contraire, vise à trouver des solutions en tenant compte de nombreux paramètres”.

Pas de contraintes donc de couleurs, de formes ou de matières: Olivier Chevalier utilise l’acrylique, l’huile, les pigments, le fusain, les pastels, crayons… et recouvre aussi bien toiles, cartons, bois, dans tous les formats possibles.

Bref, un nouveau départ pour chaque création. 

Et puis les formes apparaissent dans la matière. Parfois, il les souligne jusqu’à en faire le sujet principal. La plupart du temps, il ne fait que les ébaucher, quitte à utiliser une loupe pour rester au plus près de la matière et de ce qu’elle suggère.  “Je ne mets presque jamais de titre à mes toiles. Je souhaite que le ‘récepteur’ se sente libre dans son interprétation. Parfois, des personnages ont besoin d’être précisés, parfois il me semble que la toile se tient mieux si elle reste dans l’abstraction. J’aime rester sur le fil. Pour ce personnage, la main était plus importante que le visage; ici, les formes sombres évoquent des présences, cela n’aurait rien apporté de les préciser. Ce qui est certain, c’est que je considère que je n’ai pas de message à délivrer, j’essaie juste de construire un univers cohérent qui permet d’ouvrir un dialogue avec les autres”.

Cette façon de faire qui vise à attendre que le tableau “se tienne” peut prendre quelques heures comme elle peut prendre six mois.
Encore une citation pour créer quelques passerelles, citation qu’on attribue à quantité d’artistes, notamment Picasso: à une dame qui regardait un de ses dessins et qui lui dit: ‘Cela a dû vous prendre cinq minutes’, l’artiste aurait répondu: “Non, madame, soixante ans et cinq minutes”.

Olivier Chevalier préfère évoquer un autre artiste, mais l’idée est la même: la recherche d’une harmonie qui sera évidente au premier regard est le fruit d’un long labeur pour l’artiste, labeur dont le spectateur n’aura pas idée: “Francis Bacon parle d’accidents qui obtenus grâce à l’inconscient perdent en force à partir du moment où l’intellect entre en jeu”.

Cette harmonie quelque soit la construction géométrique ou quelque soit la palette a donc demandé du temps à l’artiste, et des exigences qu’il s’est lui-même imposées: “J’ai eu une période où je travaillais dans les bruns, les ocres, bref une palette un peu éteinte. Pour m’en sortir, je me suis imposé une contrainte: c’était il y a une dizaine d’années, j’ai demandé à ma femme d’aller choisir les couleurs et j’ai travaillé avec ce qu’elle m’a rapporté… Depuis, c’est vrai, ma palette est à la fois plus variée et plus lumineuse”.

Une palette qui convient parfaitement à cette peinture, étroitement liée à une notion de plaisir: Plaisir de peindre pour l’artiste, plaisir de s’attarder sur ces harmonies, ces équilibres de construction pour celui qui regarde. 

VOIR LE TRAVAIL D'OLIVIER CHEVALIER →

Olivier Chevalier s’est formé à l’Ecole Corvisart, où il acquiert une formation très technique (lettrage, graphisme), complétée par une formation aux Arts appliqués, où il se forme aussi bien à la peinture qu’au design espace. Pendant de nombreuses années, cette double formation lui permettra de mener cette double activité, avant de se consacrer uniquement à la peinture depuis 2015.

“En peinture, les sujets font évoluer la pratique”

Didier Saby aime le dessin, la pratique du dessin. La peinture, la couleur, la matière, tout cela n’est venu qu’après, et par phases successives, en fonction de ses lieux de vie et des thèmes retenus. Itinéraire d’un artiste qui intègre la peinture à son chemin de vie.

Didier Saby dessine et peint. Mais il le fait dans un lien étroit avec le reste de sa vie: ses lieux de vie, ses rencontres, sa disponibilité. Parler de sa peinture revient donc, dans une certaine mesure, à retracer des éléments biographiques.

Il y a quelques années, Didier Saby peignait à l’aquarelle. “C’était à Collioure, il y avait une école artistique, qui mettait l’accent sur une aquarelle très contrastée, des oeuvres réalisées sur papier sec, ce qui donnait des résultats très éloignés de ce que peuvent être par ailleurs les aquarelles, avec leur côté vaporeux qui, pour le coup, ne m’inspirent guère”. Peu à peu, grâce à ce groupe, Didier Saby maîtrise une technique qui jusqu’ici n’avait pas particulièrement retenu son attention.

A Collioure, l’artiste parvient à concilier son goût pour le dessin avec une mise en couleur franche et rapide: “L’été, nous peignions devant le public, et c’est une excellente école!  Et l’hiver, je travaillais en atelier sur une peinture plus personnelle. Je faisais alors des oeuvres à l’huile, mais en utilisant un médium pour accélérer les temps de séchage et permettre un travail en transparence. A l’époque, je vivais en appartement. J’utilisais alors des miroirs pour avoir les bonnes distances avec mon sujet”. Là encore, une technique liée tout simplement à ses conditions de vie de l’époque.

Et puis l’artiste part s’installer dans le Lot. “Les couleurs froides sont arrivées! J’ai continué à travailler en transparence, mais ma palette a changé: le bleu, les alliances de vert et de rose… Et puis j’aimais jouer avec le contraste des matières, il m’arrivait même d’intégrer des morceaux de faïences. C’était le cas dans des oeuvres représentant des iris, ou des paysages. Et puis, un jour, un singe est arrivé dans un tableau, un peu par hasard, un peu par besoin de créer une dimension fantastique dans l’oeuvre en cours. Il se trouve qu’à cette même époque, je découvre dans un magazine un reportage sur les macaques dans une ville indienne. Il y avait chez ces singes un côté famille fusionnelle qui me plaisait. J’en ai donc fait le point de départ d’un travail en matière, pour aller du glacis à une peinture plus classique”.

Ce cheminement était important à décrire: Didier Saby n’a pas toujours peint des singes, et n’a pas non plus toujours peint avec la même technique: “En peinture, le sujet n’est pas anodin. C’est même lui qui fait évoluer la pratique. Je suis passé à une peinture plus empâtée à partir du moment où je me suis passionnée pour ce thème des singes. C’était un changement technique qui me semblait nécessaire si je voulais bien rendre compte du pelage de ces animaux”.

Les singes lui permettent finalement de se concentrer sur tout ce que cherche l’artiste depuis ses débuts: un travail sur la couleur, sur la matière, un dessin rigoureux pour rendre compte du mouvement et du mouvement arrêté, des connaissances en morphologie, …

“Finalement, les singes sont devenus un support pour évoluer dans ma peinture!” reconnaît volontiers l’artiste. Je ne me définis certainement pas comme peintre animalier, les singes m’ont simplement permis de me poser des problèmes de peintre”.

L’artiste déménage encore une fois et part s’installer en Aveyron où il réside toujours. Là encore, nouvelle étape, nouvelle évolution dans sa peinture, mais qui tiendra à deux facteurs bien différents. Le premier est extérieur à son oeuvre: il décroche un poste de prof d’arts plastiques et, conséquence immédiate, consacre beaucoup moins de temps à son propre travail: “Du coup, j’ai eu tendance à me centrer pleinement sur les singes colorés! Au début, je n’étais pas content, puis un jour, j’ai senti que les tableaux se tenaient, quand j’ai réalisé des toiles d’un mètre sur un mètre”. Et le bestiaire s’enrichit: des pigeons, des chats, voire parfois des portraits.

A chaque fois, une technique qui part d’une photo réaliste pour aller vers une composition où ne comptent plus que l’équilibre et l’harmonie purement plastiques: une photo, une maquette à l’aquarelle, un dessin, une toile et le choix d’une palette. “Ce qui me donne envie de faire le tableau? Quand je suis content de mon dessin!”. Et puis, des fonds parfois quasi-abstraits, avec quelques évocations de feuillages pour venir en contrepoint de la souplesse du pelage de l’animal. 

La deuxième évolution en revanche tient pleinement à ce nouveau lieu de vie, l’Aveyron, Rodez. “Qu’on le veuille ou non, la présence du noir est incontournable dans une ville comme Rodez. Et je ne pense pas d’emblée à Soulages. Je pense à la terre, à l’ardoise. C’est particulièrement frappant quand on arrive de Collioure ou du Lot!”.

Jusqu’ici, le noir n’apparaissait pas dans son travail. “Il a une présence trop puissante. Quand j’en mets, je ne m’en sors pas”. 

Didier Saby le sait et l’affirme simplement: “ma peinture est vraiment le produit de mon environnement!”. Qu’il y ait des singes ou non à Rodez ne change rien à l’affaire.

La mixité fragile du vivant

Melissa Tresse aime les animaux, morts ou vivants, réels ou imaginaires. Ils constituent sous sa pointe sèche un bestiaire qui plonge ses racines dans les contes médiévaux mais qui en dit long aussi sur la précarité du vivant à l’époque actuelle.

Sur le site de Melissa Tresse, quatre entrées principales: gravures, peintures, dessins et… “ces bêtes”.

Il faut sans doute commencer par cette rubrique pour comprendre ensuite les oeuvres. Ces bêtes… ou toutes les petites bestioles que la jeune Melissa Tresse gardait, conservait, exposait dans son enfance: une chauve-souris suspendue en l’air entre quatre fils, un squelette de belette, sagement présenté, os par os, dans une petite boîte, une créature composée d’un corps d’insecte volant et d’un crâne de souris...

 “J’ai grandi à la campagne, et j’ai toujours aimé collectionner les choses, notamment les os, les squelettes. J’avais même créé un musée chez nous, dans le poulailler. J’avais viré les poules, et j’exposais mes animaux à moi. Et puis, petit à petit, j’ai continué à collectionner, mais en personnalisant un peu mes trouvailles. J’assemblais les éléments et créais des chimères. Toute cette enfance a évidemment alimenté ma création artistique”.

Avec ce contexte en tête, on passe aux peintures, dessins, gravures, pour découvrir un bestiaire comprenant toute sorte d’animaux vivants ou imaginaires.

“Ce monde animal m’a toujours permis de relier mon enfance aux contes, au monde médiéval réel ou fantasmé”.

Dernier dessin en date: une arche de Noë, thème qui par essence intègre toutes les espèces existantes, mais que l’artiste a justement traité autrement. Dans un premier dessin, un bateau ventru, mais échoué et sans plus aucun signe de vie, humaine ou animale. Dans le deuxième, trois êtres vivants ont réussi à prendre le large… mais il s’agit de trois êtres humains, et dans le troisième, les seuls animaux visibles sont des poissons échoués et sans doute asphyxiés…. 

Au XXIè, siècle, avec ce que l’on sait de la destruction du milieu naturel, voilà la vision d’une arche de Noé qui laisse peu d’espoir. 

Autre vision, guère plus optimiste dans un autre dessin, où l’on voit un poisson volant remorquer des individus dans une barque à la dérive.

“Le mythe et la fable sont pour moi comme un langage vivant qui me sert à interroger le présent. Ces images poétiques entrent en résonances les unes avec les autres, se répondent, comme si comme si elles avaient fait partie d’un livre dont on aurait perdu le contenu”.

D’autres gravures ou dessins montrent des traitements plus légers, où l’humour, voire l’absurde, se font une place: “Je suis fascinée par l’incroyable mixité du vivant et le potentiel de formes qu’elle recèle. En dessinant, je tente de suggérer plutôt que définir avec précision la nature étrange des corps représentés, tout en gardant une grande spontanéité dans l’écriture graphique”. 

Que ce soit en dessin ou en gravure, les personnages se mêlent ainsi aux poissons, oiseaux, mammifères, sans souci de réalisme ou d’échelle, tous mis au même plan, l’artiste accordant la même importance aux uns et aux autres.

Melissa Tresse fait des liens entre les différents acteurs du monde vivant, comme elle en fait avec les techniques: “Pour l’Arche de  Noé, ce sont des dessins à l’encre de Chine pour pouvoir ensuite les tirer en sérigraphie, éventuellement avec des couleurs. C’est une technique que j’ai encore peu pratiquée, mais qui permet de faire des ponts entre gravure et dessin”.

Car l’artiste pratique avant tout la gravure, sous toutes ces formes: les eaux-fortes sur plaque de zinc, en incisant la plaque vernie avec une pointe sèche, une technique permettant d’infinis détails; mais également des pratiques plus brutes, comme les bois gravés, qui permettent d’autres formes d’expression.

Le travail de Melissa Tresse est a priori intemporel: la gravure, sous toutes ses formes, est un art ancien; le thème du Bestiaire remonte au moins au Moyen-âge, voire à l’Antiquité. L’artiste ne cache pas que des artistes comme Jérôme Bosch ou Brueghel ont été de vraies sources d’inspiration.

Malgré tout, elle apporte une touche de modernité évidente, à la fois en reliant le thème à la situation actuelle de la planète, et en intégrant des gravures dans des présentations parfois insolites, où la gravure est par exemple découpée… en suivant le bord du motif (hérésie suprême pour tous les amateurs de gravures anciennes).

Elle a ainsi exposé en 2013 des gardiens imposants au château de Lanoux, des figures gravées dans des planches de cèdre de très grand format. “Exposer les bois directement apporte autre chose que d’exposer les gravures, car cela revient à exposer un travail qui relève de la sculpture, un travail en relief fait avec les burins et les ciseaux à bois. Ce qui compte ici, c’est que l’image du corps apparaît dans des creux, des éraflures, des grands coups de gouges, des petites griffures laissées dans la matière dense. A partir de ces bois,  j’ai réalisé de grands frottages. Les figures sacrées, très simple, imposantes sur le bois, prennent alors l’apparence de linceuls extrêmement fragiles”.

Derrière l’apparence ventrue de l’arche de Noé, derrière la solidité des gardiens, se cache toujours une autre façon de voir les choses.
Le monde est peuplée d’êtres vivants… mais cela ne pourrait avoir qu’un temps.    Texte : A.D

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Née en 1985, Melissa Tresse a toujours vécu en Ariège, dans la campagne. Elle choisit une option arts plastiques au lycée.

Pour comprendre son parcours, il faut mentionner un élément familial important: Mélissa Tresse a pour parents deux artistes peintres: “Ce qui veut dire deux choses. D’une part, je savais qu’il était possible de vivre de cet art, mais…. d’autre part, en grandissant, je ne voulais surtout pas reproduire le modèle que j’avais sous les yeux. J’ai donc choisi le théâtre”.

Le goût pour le dessin et les arts plastiques l’a rattrape, et Melissa Tresse s’inscrit en fac d’arts plastiques à Toulouse. Elle y reste deux ans, et choisit la troisième année de poursuivre par l’enseignement à distance pour pouvoir avoir en parallèle plus de pratique: elle part en Tunisie apprendre le soufflage du verre six mois, puis aux Canaries, chez un graveur qui lui fait découvrir toutes les potentialités de la gravure. 

Elle poursuit en intégrant les Beaux-Arts de Nîmes en troisième année, et continue la gravure…. “mais c’était une pratique considérée comme ringarde. Donc au bout d’un moment, j’ai continué mais sans montrer mes travaux aux profs!”.

Depuis, Melissa Tresse pratique en alternance dessins, gravures et peintures.

You have an atypical background. What made you become an artist ?

After my secondary school graduation in Science, I wanted to become an architect, but for financial reasons, I could not continue my studies. I started to make creations first out of passion, then I had the idea to show them and the success was immediate with several sales.

Why are you working on this little-used material that is paper?

I've had this passion for paper all my life. I remember my passion for origami as a child. When I grew up, it evolved. One of the things I had fun doing was carving paper with a scalpel during some boring classes.

How do you design a work ?

I always start from sketches I've made before. I start from the global form I want to create, then I'll work on the cut and the color. My work being very thorough, any mistake is fatal. There's no eraser to erase a cross-cut scalpel ! When I start a new work, I am so focused on the result, that I work there continuously, even if I have to spend a whole night there.

Precision and gesture are very important in my work. They have significantly improved over the years.

VIEW BENOIT PONSOLLE'S ARTWORKS →

Long-legged women, naked or in swimsuits rub shoulders with horsemen, butterflies and landscapes with clean lines. Simplicity and efficiency are this artist key words !

As a child, Jiri Havlik used to cover every piece of paper he could find with drawings. When the paper ran out, the family apartment walls were his playground. This led him to study gilding restoration at the High School of Uherské Hradiště in Moravia (Czech Republic) before embarking on “the artist life”.

He draws his inspiration from his walks in the countryside or in the unknown cities he visits. Sometimes he even wakes up at night — an idea that crossed his mind- and suddenly he imagines a new creation. To this end, he keeps a notebook beside his bed so that he can make a quick sketch before going back to sleep.

In his work, he does not plan anything in advance. The subject he is going to paint always appears under his hand spontaneously. He is even sometimes very surprised by the result as if he was not really the author. For his creations, he often uses his old drawings and sketches-which were sometimes drawn 5 or 20 years ago ! He particularly likes to mix techniques and materials (pencil, ink, gouache, collages, metal, photography, lino engraving, dry tip...), and if the result does not satisfy him, he does not hesitate to destroy the work he has just made.

Since the dawn of time, women have inspired sculpture, painting, theatre and, more recently, cinema. Jiri Havlik, like many other artists before him, is a fervent admirer of women beauty and mystery. This is why it is a favourite theme in his work.

Due to the simplicity, style and purity of the lines,  his paintings and drawings reveal part of woman beauty and hidden mysteries. For the part that's definitely hidden, it's up to you to find out.

VIEW JIRI HAVLIK'S ARTWORKS →

Very close to the beautiful city of Saumur, on the Loire river, there is a forest unlike any other. Let's meet a unique artist.

I spotted strange white traces on tree trunks. I was getting closer, and these tracks turned into a rabbit. I continued My Journey and fell face to face with a young woman drawing with chalk.

I was getting closer and closer. Her name was Sekhmet - an Egyptian goddess in the forests of Anjou! In front of my astonished gaze, she said to me : “Sekhmet, she is the dualistic goddess, destructive and creative. She is just like all of us." I continued to walk with her, and I discovered new creations all the way through the forest.

She told me that after several experiences, she decided to focus on photography — the only way to give full life to her inner world. The discovery of land art and artist Nils Udo triggered her new vocation. From the summer of 2015 on, her childhood forests begin to populate with her paintings characters (made from biodegradable materials-chalk or lime). The land art tells me - it is the right thing to do, the work is born, lives and dies, just like us, humans.

As we continued, we reached a meadow. Sekhmet began to draw a horse based on Lime and fire paste and then set fire to his mane and hooves. The night began to fall, we slowly came out of the forests and she told me about her other achievements in industrial wild lands mixing street art, anamorphosis and light painting.

It is at the end of our meeting that she tells me these words which have struck me : “there is beauty in everything, it is enough to take the time to observe it and sometimes to adopt the right perspective to perceive it. That's why I'm so attracted to anamorphosis.

As in life, sometimes we don't see things unless we're on the right track. Kind of hide-and-seek that we play without realizing it with the world. Sometimes a slight change of point of view finally enables to capture the image.”

How does Sekhmet carry out her anamorphosis?

She doesn't usually know what she's going to achieve until she finds the perfect spot. It's like trees or walls call for a particular image. When she finds it, the image imposes itself on her. She sees the work ends before it begins. Only then she sketches to approach the final image that she has the mind. She creates her image on the computer using a graphic tablet and an image processing software. The resulting file is then used for a video projection : she will draw the contours necessary for the realization of the painting. Therefore, she only paints at night and she does the touch-up painting during the day.

VIEW SEKHMET'S ARTWORKS →

Mr. Strange, the aptly named

In the world of Mr. Strange, the coelacanth becomes Sheila Kant, ... and animals of all kinds ask metaphysical questions: the cat above the clouds, the monkey that remains at the end of a show, etc...

The unusual is obvious, and it is unclear what guided the artist: the desire to make clash of visuals or the undisguised pleasure of illustrating a word game, an expression, to show that the absurd nests everywhere, in the lived, the words or the images.

"I like to try to show that the world is not what we think it is, to decipher the artificial and puppetesque effervescence to expose human society, this puppet show where everyone plays their part by avoiding (but that's unconscious) to live his true life! I am attracted by the unusual, the bizarre and the nonsense. But pure provocation does not appeal to me".

Logically, the artist goes to the end and also sows trouble on the technique used: photo? painting? digital editing? All three at once! The artist imagines the scene from photos found on Google images, makes a digital montage to obtain a photo. "My challenge is mixing these images that have no connection between them. And who finally, once associated, create a new reality and open new doors ".

Behind the pseudonym of Mr Strange, a 50-year-old from Montpellier: "Art has always accompanied me, even though I have chosen my gift for sport very early on. I was a good tennis player in my youth and this activity became my job. I am a tennis teacher in the Hérault. But in high school, I had a course oriented towards the history of art and drawing.

I started very early to draw. Between 8 and 12 years, poetry .... Comics between 10 and 16 years old. Between 17 and 30 years old, I started painting with oil and modeling (Di Rosa and Combas style). Then I went through a long time without creation. About ten years ago, the creative volcano woke up. I started what I called "spicture", a mix of painting and sculpture. Relief paint using clay and acrylic.

Mr. Strange's work has found an unexpected extension. "I met a few years ago on the Internet from a Chinese, Qihai Chen. He had cracked on my photographic work and had proposed to reproduce one, L'Homme Penché, which knows a certain success on ARTMAJEUR. Since then, it has become my partner, taking up the challenge of transforming digital work into oil painting on canvas ". Text: A.D

Browse Mr Strange's works →

The bodies are beautiful, and they are naked. But facing the light, facing the autumnal nature, facing the monuments that emerge, these bodies laid bare are only a vain counterpoint to the fighting that may have taken place in these places. The bodies are only there to emphasize the gap between beauty and what is hidden. The human nature is perhaps beautiful, it is above all a great fragility.

While we are just leaving commemorations of the Great War, this is an inconvenient work, which shows that the day after the conflict or a hundred years later, the war will always be pregnant ... If we must not forget it is also because it gives an incomparable strength of life, and the artist Julien Sunyé is undoubtedly one of the best placed to say it.

"Every year we celebrate peace, but we are still at war." Through 24 European destinations (in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium), the photographer Julien Sunyé evokes the

traumas of the conflicts that are crossed, those that are ignored or those that are ignored by denial. Black Holes, the artist in conflict violence, who are opposed or opposed today, in the world: "The emotions that cross us origins in childhood. It takes time, attention and real work on oneself to understand and analyze. But modern life leaves little room for this inner quest. Finally, show your pains, learn to overcome, to make peace with what it is to live and to create a harmonious future for oneself and others ".

A series that evokes universal historical themes, but which can obviously refer to many more personal elements. And Julien Sunyé knows something, he who worked in finance before diving in 2013 in a severe depression whose causes escape him. It prevents him from working, from being able to express his emotions and thus from continuing to live. Seeking to cope, Julien Sunyé is interested in different forms of trauma. He learns that childhood trauma is deeply embedded in the subconscious and can define the present. The person then becomes a prisoner of his past.

During the summer of 2016, the photographer decided to go to the battlefields of Verdun. He is struck by the idea that the past can lock up an individual but also an entire people. Soothed by the photographic work that led his way to several countries in Europe on "sensitive or historical" sites, Julien Sunyé feels that he is in the right place to lead his reflection.

Each new photographic session helps him overcome his depression a little more until he finally manages to recover in September 2018.

Born in Amsterdam in 1982, Julien Sunyé begins street photography in Paris. This Franco-Dutchman (French by his father and Dutch by his mother) found his inspirations as much in the work of Henri Cartier Bresson as in the Dutch painters of the 16th and 17th centuries. At the same time the humanism of the French photographer, and the intimacy of the Dutch painters. Text: A.D

BROWSE JULIEN SUNYÉ'S WORKS  →

In September 2014, Canadian radio CBC presented a young artist who claimed to be the inventor of a revolutionary art, the invisible art. She was describing a work she had worked on for hours, but that could not be seen. It was a hoax.

What the authors of this farce could not imagine was that many invisible art initiatives had already been experimented by artists like Duchamp, Magritte or Warhol.

In June 2011, the artist duo Praxis sponsored by comedian James Franco launched the "Non-Visible Museum" or MONA, "an eccentricity of imagination, a museum that reminds us that we live in two worlds: the physical world of sight and the non-visible world of thought.Completely made up of ideas and sniffing at the art market, the works will simply be described to visitors ... "

More generally, the promoters of the invisible art postulate that art is not limited to physical achievements to see or to possess.

Works inaccessible, hidden, invisible or to disappear to keep only the memory, would be equally able to provide artistic emotions.

To evoke a work disappeared or invisible to the naked eye, would make it revive a posteriori.

These very conceptual artistic orientations are based on the rejection of the mercantile and speculative turn of contemporary art.

On the other side of the coin, promoting the artistic emotion of a work that is not seen or touched, and focusing on narrative or story telling, could disqualify this approach.

The incredulous spectator, prevented from making his own judgment by exercising all his senses, would be reduced to believing "the artist" on his word ...

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Socialter defines creativity as "the Grail of the 21st century" and the World Economic Forum places it at the heart of the four key competencies of our time with critical thinking, the art of communicating and collaborating. Essential to the survival and development of the company, it is essential to promote and integrate it into the corporate culture.

What is creativity?

It is the ability of a person or group of people to design and implement a new concept, a new object or to discover an original solution to a problem. Creativity is at the origin of invention (when used for a product or service) and innovation (when this invention applies to a market).

Are we all creative?

In the collective unconscious, creativity appears as the prerogative of some solitary geniuses, often cursed, endowed with innate gifts and disconcerting facilities. In reality, each person has a creative potential often under-exploited or constrained by conformism, pessimism, fear of failure, family or social judgment, education.

What are the characteristics of the creative people it is up to us to develop?

- self-esteem in any event;

- determination, commitment and perseverance at all times;

- an unlimited curiosity to embrace all fields of knowledge, observation or the human condition;

- high speed of information processing of any kind associated with a taste for complexity;

- a flash resolution of problems associated with an almost automatic generation of ideas;

- an ability to imagine other worlds, other systems, other logics.

The thought of a creative is both:

- analogue (linked to the free association of ideas and images coming from different and often compartmentalized universes),

- divergent (original, fluid and flexible),

- original: free from gender stereotypes,

-deconcerting: capable of operating radical reversals.

The great enemies of the creative are fatigue and stress, the search for perfection, specialization, the "academic" spirit, the routine and the lack of openness to the world.

Creating something that has never existed requires enthusiasm, experimentation and a detachment of knowledge and the past. It's an open, free-spirited attitude that feeds on everything and is driven by challenges.

How to become more creative?

Many exercises that promote idea generation and problem solving exist. Nevertheless, developing a creative mindset is the key for those who wish to exploit their creative potential, namely:

- absorb everything and be open to new experiences to find inspiration and promote the analog process;

- constantly ask questions to deepen your knowledge;

- to think like a child, to free oneself from schemas, constraints and forbidden, to move away from reason;

- to question and reconsider the gains;

- hear all points of view to develop new paths and new interactions;

- alternate creative phase and mental rest phase;

- make sleep his ally to develop the unconscious thought;

- take a distance on things to implement the imagination;

- develop one's sense of humor, have wit;

- take risks, consider failures as a way to progress and develop boundless determination;

- never censor ideas;

- develop the fun aspect of creation by moving from cock to donkey, associating, taking the opposite, playing the paradox.

Even if the great creations are generally the fact of an individual connected to his desires, his thoughts, his inner challenges, the innovation is often a collective act, the fruit of a creativity and an original action of team. Theoretically, the creativity of a group of individuals together should have infinitely greater potential than that of an isolated person. In practice, the optimization of "collective intelligence" involves creating the conditions for group creativity and setting up the organization that allows the individual creative process to be replicated at the team level.

Different approaches such as design thinking promote the spread of the culture of creativity in the company and the organization of the different stages of preparation, incubation, generation of solutions and validation. In business, creative improvisation with decision and immediate implementation does not exist. On the other hand, the respect of the different creative stages can allow the emergence of complementarities and a creative team spirit that will allow to interiorize the creative process and accelerate the group innovation.

To remain competitive and foster innovation, one of the means to remove the resistance to change of employees (seeing no personal interest, considering not having the required skills or feeling threatened by the unknown) is to set up a culture of creativity applied in the rules of the art.

By restoring trust, enhancing value, by collaborating on joint projects in which everyone contributes, by making a difference in the collective fruits, the company will gain in flexibility, adhesion and dynamism, essential in an open economy more and more globalized before meet increasingly individualized needs.

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Art, a mode of expression of a subjectivity, seems at first sight disconnected from the notions of organization, profit or profitability and rational management methods used in the management of a company.

Art, an individual activity, irrational, out of context and sensitive, generally arouses the skepticism of management and the mistrust of employees seeking "validating" technical training. It is these same well-established patterns that favor management and technology over human sciences and artistic disciplines. However, art and management have every interest in crossing each other to enrich each other.

The company has a lot to learn from the artistic process, in particular:

- the quest for meaning: the artistic process conveys values and carries a particular mission;

- project management: each work, composition or realization, requires a real project management;

- the mastery of the techniques of realization: without control of the basic techniques brought to evolve with the experimentation and the artistic approach towards personal and original techniques, the art does not exist (the artist must be an outstanding technician doubled a technical innovator);

- an iterative process: the artist constantly interacts with the work in progress, making the necessary adjustments to achieve the desired result;

- an approach of originality and creativity: what distinguishes the artist from the craftsman is this creative ability, this search for novelty. We speak of "performance" or artistic originality;

- a humanist approach: at the same time, a personal vision of the world and an uncompromising look at reality, art expresses in a particular aesthetic form the world around us;

- total risk taking: there is no certainty that the work is well received by the market;

- a highly competitive art market: art has no borders, competition is global. The artist, guided by a personal approach that has no commercial intention, is confronted with the hypercompetition and the material necessity of creating his market and building up his base of customers and users;

- A work of art is above all a "sensitive user experience" (emotion, wonder, energy). The artist must maximize this experience by facilitating the accessibility of his art if he wants to sell his work;

- an individual creation that inserts itself and interacts with its environment and society;

- a process of expression and personal realization.

The modern manager who wants to foster collaboration and creativity has every interest in developing his own creative potential and immersing himself in artistic processes in order to facilitate group creativity. Individual creativity is a state of mind that can be stimulated (exhibition visits, open courses, creativity workshops ...). Creation processes can be learned through contact with artists (artistic interventions in the company, visits to workshops, conferences, etc.).

The artist has a lot to learn from the manager.

Recently, the concept of artist-entrepreneur, an artist managing his artistic work as a business, has appeared. In an ultra-competitive market, the artist can be brought to disseminate his works to build an identity, a brand, to invent new communication and sales methods, to develop a range of products derived from the original production adapted to his market. Some artists produce works "ready to hang", more affordable, allowing them to cope with the costs of producing more ambitious works. This approach criticized by some purists is not necessarily a brake on originality or creativity. If the artist does not resign himself to producing "what works", but develops accessible artistic concepts of tomorrow. To have financial resources linked to the sale of his works is the goal and the dream of every artist, but also his greatest source of freedom and innovation.

Obviously, in a world that requires more and more flexibility, openness, originality and efficiency, these two approaches, artistic and managerial, are called to nourish each other to give birth to a creative management and organized arts activities.

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A very good article of the journalist Audrey Chabal on Artmajeur currently makes the home page of Forbes, to be found on the following link:
https://www.forbes.fr/entrepreneurs/art-majeur-democratise-achat-art-grace-a-internet/

Interview TV at our offices in Montpellier - France 3 reportage by J.Escafre / F.Jobard / F.Alibert

The first Aboriginal rock paintings date back to the dawn of time (more than 50,000 years ago), much earlier than those found in Europe. First forms of known art, perpetuated on their original support (rock, sand ...) until twenty years ago then with modern techniques (canvas, acrylic ...), are now threatened with extinction.

Aboriginal art is both a sacred art and a ritual art used in initiation ceremonies. These representations evoke the Dream Time, the time of supernatural beings that have arisen from the earth, traveled and created the world and living beings. The space sacred time, space parallel to ours always pre-exists. Only initiates can come into contact with him during ritual ceremonies.

At the time of the creation of the world, these fantastic beings left traces in the landscape. The paintings are a kind of narrative and symbolic cartography which revive their work of creation of the world. By linking the two worlds, activating and diffusing the vital energy of the great ancestors, they allow life to perpetuate itself and the world not to disappear. Basically, the great Aboriginal artists are painting to ensure the survival of their community and more broadly of the world! Aboriginal art is a collective spiritual art with a naturalistic, figurative or geometric style.

The "aboriginal artistic movement" itself was born in the 1970s under the impetus of an English teacher Geoffrey Bardon who pushed the students of the community of Papunya (center of Australia) to reproduce on walls, panels or canvas the motifs of the Dream Time. According to the critic Robert Hughes, the last great pictorial artistic movement of the XXth century was born ... The sacred representations bearing power and history being reserved for the initiated, different techniques (such as pointillism) were used by the artists to preserve their secret character and show only the secular part. Success was such that Aboriginal art sales peaked at $ 200 million per year in the years 1990-2000. After having been ignored for a long time, this commercial success made it possible for the aboriginal communities to reconstitute themselves and to disseminate their millenary culture to the world in a suitable form.

Considered to be the legacy of an endangered civilization, this art was categorized by the art market as "ancient, ethnographic art", and progressively confined to stereotypes, techniques and standardized motifs giving the lead to "historical" artists and leaving little room for a more contemporary creation. Few merchants supporting young artists, the great initiates who bear the millennial pictorial tradition disappearing without transmitting their art, the vitality and the renewal of aboriginal art is seriously in danger. All the more the aboriginal communities, struggling for lack of means to assume both a role of social and artistic support, are threatened with regrouping near major cities by the regional governments.

Ancient rock art is also in danger, threatened by urban development, mining, erosion, and vandalism. 50% of the rock art could disappear within forty years if not soon protected. The support of some international museums such as the Musée du Quai Branly can not replace that of local authorities, which are struggling to recognize, preserve and support the identity, culture and art of the natives of the terra nullus "(a land which belongs to no one" according to the 1770 declaration of James Cook, one of the discoverers of Australia), yet an essential component of Australian identity.

Beyond this, without mobilization, what constitutes the heritage of mankind could eventually be reduced to a digital database of missing petroglyphs and paintings produced for the layman, truncated with their original sacred motifs, which would sign the end of Australian Aboriginal art.

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Sixty years after its launch, pop art, one of the main cultural movements of the twentieth century, has gone through time and societal evolutions, well above all the trends.  Fed and likened to the popular culture, it transformed radically the whole artistic chain.

Popular art or pop art asserted itself by taking the opposite stance to the abstract expressionism (action painting by Jackson Pollock, colorful painting by Mark Rothko ...), too academic, too technical and too esoteric.

The themes were inspired by popular culture, its images, its advertising or drawing techniques. The ordinary consumption goods, treated with a touch of irony, conveying their forceful images to the public. The reproduction, duplication, superposition, combination of the popular iconography, enhanced with pure and vivid colors or geometric shapes were supposed to reflect the chaos produced by television, media, advertising, fashion, pop music, ...

Free from all conventions, pop art will revolutionize art. From the design of it, to its production, even by the way it is promoted.

• The idea, the powerful expression (style) of the work will be considered more important than the work itself. Its production, often using materials of industrial origin (acrylic, screen printing ...) will not require a lot of technicality. The workshop will become a factory, so dear to Andy Warhol.

• Reproduction and mass production will upset the traditional uniqueness of the work.

• The generally black-colored line contrasting with the clear line of the advertising or comic strip, is embellished with colors with no gradient effects that attract the eye and give more impact to the image.

• The use of symbols and popular images will desecrate the work of art.

• Happenings and environments will play an important role in the promotion and sale of this "ready to eat" art form.

Art in search of simplicity and efficiency, trying to make big impression thanks to its techniques and popular inspirations. Pop art has in turn enriched and stylized popular imagery.

It will strongly influence the generations of artists: from conceptual art, to graffiti artists or urban artists such as Basquiat or Keith Harring, the neo-pop (Morimura And the kitsch artist Jeff Koons) to vintage, graphic design and web design ...

Turning out to be particularly accurate in a digital world where the image, the immediate, the short-lived, the simple and clear, the hard-hitting prevail, its by-products became simple objects of consumption bought instinctively…How ironic! Pop art has literally melted into popular culture.

If its technical and esthetic qualities are debatable with regards to the realizations of great masters such as Velazquez, Monet or Picasso, its artists always reach millions in auctions. Its stylistic innovations used in numerous creative domains (advertising, design) are still powerful. Part of the collective cultural imagination, its visionary and opportunistic artistic approach is undoubtedly ranking first in the history of art and the culture.

Born in the United States in the 1970s, street art regroups works (images, visual signatures) created in the street, other than graffiti style writing (signatures).

Recently legitimized by the art market, it has a strong public enthusiasm, echoed by digital technologies.

Street art is an ephemeral and unsolicited art, assimilated to vandalism, inscribed on the walls, façades of buildings of the urban area. Sticking to the evolutions of contemporary society, playful or aesthetic, it aims to be seen by the crowd in order to provoke, testify or embellish its everyday life.

Street artists use different techniques:

- graffiti: aerosol bombs projecting colored and indelible painting;

-stencil: cardboard, metal sheets or cut-out x-rays reproducing patterns or figures on which painting is "bulged";

- sticker;

- "yarn bombing" or technique of knitting: multiple yarns of wool of different colors;

- tape art: adhesive tapes (brown tape art), or canvas and waterproof used by masons (duct tape art);

- three-dimensional "street installations" designed to be moved and not "damaging" the public space.

This popular art, exposed to all winds, with a vocation of identity, protest and aesthetics, has since a while entered galleries and private collections. Some of Jean-Michel Basquiat's and Bansky's achievements were simply torn from their original urban location to be auctioned off.

Many "street artists” seeking a longevity and a remuneration for their work helped produce a derivative production," living room "works inspired by their originally urban work. Even these pieces are deprived of original street art characteristics (ephemeral, in situ, free ), more and more amateurs are attracted by big names of the urban counterculture.

It is clear that information technologies (mobile and digital internet), promoting a culture of image, ephemeral, instantaneous, are powerful tools for disseminating and preserving the works of street artists. Online communities of amateur have been formed providing an audience that surpasses that of physical space.

Everyone being focused on their smartphone rather than on urban space, it is likely that in the future street artists will create directly on digital support for a digital public. 

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Art brut or Raw art is an artistic genre increasingly valued for its singularity, its inventiveness and its emotional impact.

Defined in 1945 by Jean Dubuffet as a simple and natural art, executed by non-professionals, having neither artistic culture nor pretension or cultural approach, it is a spontaneous, impulsive art, giving way to invention, techniques and non-academic materials.

Like Paul Klee or André Breton, a surrealist writer looking for inconscious creation, Jean Dubuffet began collecting what was called "the art of the fools" in the 1920s. He subsequently broadened the specter of raw art to all forms of spontaneous creation, realized by mediums, marginalized, prisoners or the excluded to the ... "men of the common", outside artistic circuits.

Rough art is a vital, inner expression, devoid of any cultural purpose, communication or commerce.

"Art uncultivated, arising from a gift of nature, devoid of any relation to the artistic field " according to Pierre Bourdieu, this art disturbs.

Often repetitive, obsessive or even complex, it joins the approach of some artists obsessively exploring the same artistic problematic.

Away from the history of art, it has existed since the dawn of time.

Not altered by the standards of adult life, cultural conditioning or conformation to the rules of cultural art, it is an act of pure creation. By referring to the creative impulse as an expression of the mystery of existence, raw art is reaching a wide audience.

Jean Dubuffet thought that raw art should escape the market because it existed autonomously.

In the 1970s, a similar movement called « Outsider art » emerged, highlighting marginal, self-taught creators who conceived their work in solitude and outside the artistic milieu. Many raw artists saw their market value flying, art brut became paradoxically a dynamic component of the art market ...

However, the legitimation of this artistic genre has opened the art market to non-professionals, self-taught artists painting with their guts and their soul.

The universal nature of these creations being appreciated by an increasingly wide audience, a greater official recognition of these original artworks could revivify the official sclerotic art.

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The CoBrA movement (for Copenhagen-Brussels-Amsterdam), lasting from 1948 to 1951, is one of the most important post-war avant-garde movements.

Composed of Danish (Asger Jorn), Dutch (Appel Karel) and Belgian painters (Corneille, Pierre Alechinsky) and Belgian surrealist poets (Christian Dotremont and Joseph Noiret), this international movement has liberated artistic expression by overtaking the traditional opposition between figurative and abstract expression.

Eager to meet the authenticity and deep nature of human beings, sensitive to the primitive expressions free from theories, norms, and conventions, such as naive art, prehistoric art, medieval popular art, children’s art, CoBrA artists have restored spontaneity, energy, bright colors and original shapes in art.

The CoBrA movement intended to return to the original purity of Art.

After drawing irrational shapes, they were nervously painting bright colors which reflected the energy and the instinctive action of the artist. Shapes were literally flamed by colors.

As a result, their works seemed either barbaric because, according to Karel Appel,"they took place in a barbaric epoch", or childish because they were searching the childhood of art.

CoBrA artists were looking for a universal expression through experimentation, spontaneous creation, and liberation of forms and colors.

This was a return to a less reflective and playful art as if art was a feast.

Since art was no longer a business of technicians or professionals, since hierarchies or "artistic" complexes have disappeared, art became again popular, available to all.

Undoubtedly Cobra artists have developed a powerful expressive experimental language (using either drawing, sculpture, wood, earth, metal, words, sounds or writing).

Cleared from complexes, judgments, and conventions, this pure art liberated the creative energies of our deep nature, contributing to our fulfillment.

"Returning to the childhood of art by recovering our childlike soul is the timeless message of the CoBrA manifesto, at a time when aesthetic and intimate art is overwhelmed by a spectacular and decorative art.

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African art is always confined to its "first art" component. The most recent exhibitions made Picasso and his contemporaries interact with statues or reliquaries, but never ever with African artists of their time ... It is as if contemporary African artists were not recognized as having any quality, influence or value in this highly strategic financial and cultural market.

However, as early as the 1930s, the first penetrations of European techniques and models into the African visual arts led to a first local awakening (known as "indigenous art").

In 1951, Pierre Lods created a painting workshop in Brazzaville. He does not impose any artistic rules on his pupils, asking them to give free rein to their creativity, spontaneity and tradition. The school of “Poto Poto”, one of the first artistic schools on the African continent, was born. The style Miké (colorful slender characters) will spread to all Africa.

Following the independence of Congo in 1960, Pierre Lods was called to Senegal by President Senghor to create, alongside Ida Ndiaye (one of the first great African artists known for his Tabaskis series) what will be called the “School Of Dakar”. Each student is introduced to the latest western artistic techniques, allowing him to explore new paths on new media that were not used because they were too expensive. The pupils of Iba Ndiaye, on one hand, will follow in the footsteps of the conceptual or abstract art. While those of Pierre Lods, will concentrate on the figuration of their traditions, dear to the poet and singer of the negritude President Senghor. These modern artists, Amadou BA, Amadou Seck, Diatta Seck, Chérif Thiam, Philippe Sène ... seen and praised by none less than Picasso, Soulages or Chagall, will constitute the prodigious pioneers of modern African art, still neglected today. They created the first African art “golden age”, thanks to the commitment of a president in love with arts and culture (30% of the state budget will be devoted to them!).

Collecting works of art is a rare practice in Africa (objects originally having a ritual or sacred function), promotional structures and museums having scarce means, the status of artist in Africa proves to be very complicated. Strong figures, supported by some patrons, nevertheless emerge: the Senegalese Ousmane Sow or Amadou Seck, Ghanaian El Anatsui, Congolese Chéri Samba, photographer Malick Sdibé, potter Seni Camara of South Africa Irma Stern and William Kentridge, Ethiopian-American Julie Mehretu, among others.

Various individual initiatives will emerge, such as the Pigozzi, Zinsu or Blachère Foundations, accumulating works by hundreds, to be displayed and valued.

For the past two or three years, it has become clear that there is a real media shudder and an early structuring of the modern and contemporary African art market.

Admittedly, it is a plural art that is very original and authentic because of its forms, its choice of colors, its often natural supports, its traditional and contemporary inspirations. From these works emerges a lot of vitality, humanity, rhythm and strength. Untouched by the trend effects and the decorative and mercantile inclinations of a western art that is still in the seeking, the African art revivifies, renews and gives a new breath to contemporary art.

Since 2013, a Contemporary African Art Fair called "1: 54" (1 continent, 54 countries) is organized in London, and recently in New York. The first edition of its French competitor AKAA (Also Known As Africa) took place at the end of 2016. South Africa is very active with the Joburg Art Fair and the Cape Town Art Fair.

An Africa Art Market Report has been published in 2015 which gives valuable benchmarks in terms of analysis of the contemporary and modern African art market. It also reveals that it is very much under-exploited and under-animated, with the notable exception of South Africa and of a few mainly western collectors.

As the economies of the African continent are growing, many modern and contemporary artists of high quality, as welle as local collectors are expected to emerge. The African art market is set to grow.

Let us hope that, after being denied for a long time, it will escape the speculative fever that the Chinese market has experienced. Wishing that it will develop in a long-term perspective and re-appropriation by local actors and collectors of their cultural and artistic heritage.

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Arte Povera was born in Italy in the late 1960s in response to the American way of life, and to the consumerist art such as pop art, characterized by overbidding, spectacular and overwhelming media-ism.

This group of artists, originating from the industrial city of Turin, were marked by social conflicts and the mercantilism of the art market. What prevails in their artistic expression is the natural, the instinct and the ephemeral.

According to the Italian art critic Germano Celant at the origin of the term, Arte povera is "an hymn to the elementary element, to the banal element, to nature, to man, fragment of spirit and body ".

Social and political manifesto, it is more an attitude, a behavior, a discipline rather than a movement, namely:

- a way of being and creating, giving priority to gesture, the creative process to the detriment of the finished object;

- a refusal to consider art as a product that can be appropriated and sacralized;

- a simple, even archaic, implementation of so-called "poor, rough, crude, natural materials (wood, coal, stones ...), often made of recovered objects ;

- the exhibition space is part of the installation;

- a poetic dimension and even a spiritual materialism forcing us to think about the mysteries of existence.

Frugal art, art of recovery or harvest, it is an essential expression, anchored in the real, with symbolic and poetic scope.

Artists of Arte povera go beyond the limits of sculpture or painting, beyond the framework, in order to exalt the real and develop a radical visual language. Numerous experiments in poor art will be carried out in other disciplines such as architecture ("Global tools", a counter-school of architecture and design rethinking social space in an ecological context), dance, cinema or music.

Arte Povera, originally an artistic guerrilla, based on a formal radicalism and an economy of means, has never been so timely.

Far from being a moment of cultural regression, it finds today many resonances and extensions in different non-ostentatious forms of art, anchored either in reality or in nature (art of the World, ecological art ...) which meat an increasingly public membership.

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