It is difficult to put one’s work into words. I will try to do so as accurately as possible.

   First of all -- to put it in terms of traditional classifications -- one could say that I am a non-representational painter. I do not feel the need to represent objects: the colors, the textures, the rhythms which make up an abstract painting  have for me a power of suggestion quite as great. What matters is to transpose one perfection -- nature’s -- into another: that of the rhythms, composition, etc.

   The composition, therefore, does not emphasize the anecdotal, but the fundamental elements of rhythm, of color, of light.

   And that for which one might look in representation -- such as sensuousness -- exists just as much in this abstract painting; for sensuousness does not dwell  in representation -- of a body, for example, if one is thinking of the body -- but in the sensuous presence of the texture, the color, the light and in the manner of painting.

   I see “painting” as a game in which the wonder and the joy of feeling -- whatever the nature of the emotions, dark or luminous -- create the desire to play.

   The rules of this game are both simple and very mysterious: to be open to the unexpected, to welcome the unknown (event or person) that turns up, to be without prejudice as to what ought to be done, but to be conscious of what happens and to control what I choose, what I keep and what I use. The only mastery is to know what not to put in, so that the suggestion remains a fugitive apparition, and so that the mystery, the secret, can maintain its due place. And then, the mastery of the right gesture, the right color, in the right place, as the appropriate response to a need, to a unity of the canvas, which proceeds from an overall intuition. A right relation between forms, colors, background, texture, without reference to a model, and which creates an organized space, animated by the life force of rhythm.

   Hence my very modest role as the painter, who when all’s said and done is the vehicle for an “impersonality” at work, for a tissue of movements and of energies which create the painting.

   So I see painting, and art, as an expression of something in the process of becoming. And the painter as someone who waits for those underground (or aerial) movements to manifest themselves. Which implies an attitude of openness, a desire to see these energies be born and reborn. And so, equally, the need to remain at all times close to the creative spring, the center, to remain watchful, awake, wide open... and to let oneself be nourished by life. A need, also, never to stop exploring techniques, materials, formats, etc., and to widen one’s range of media to be able to extend the expression of the totality, the multiple facets of unity that may reveal themselves. To be able to explore paths that one did not know and which may turn up.

   To give oneself the means to be mobile, flexible, open, and in a perpetual state of invention, like life itself.

   I have no theory of art or of painting. I have nothing to say in painting. No preconceived goal. And if a theme appears, I do not know how it will end up translating itself. As in poetry, concept and affect are completely bound up with each other. In this way, I consider painting rather as a gift from life to life, like the flowing expression of a current through the channel that is me -- and which has of course, like every channel, its own individual and unique taste.    

   In fact, I am honest with what makes up my relative “identity”: the basic data of my culture, my education, my history, my sensitivity, my physique, etc... all of which make up the vehicle that is me, which shape my “inner necessity”. This means that one could follow a clear thread in my work , and see in it certain recurring themes and a certain “coloring”. It is that which gives the particular flavor which I see going into the object in the process of creation: which turns up, in spite of yet with myself, on the canvas or the sheet of paper, and which colors that impersonal event with a personal and individual shading.

   Above I said that painting for me was a game in which wonder creates the desire to play.
This feeling of wonder and of widening which lies at the root of the creative movement can sometimes transmit itself to the spectator who is then, for a moment, “liberated” from his “self” and exists, simply, in the fertile silence of that encounter. The painting continues its life in the gaze, continues to be created, enriched by him who receives it and by that person’s experience of the world. A sharing. The gift, by the painting, of a glimpse of plenitude. A resonance with(in) the spectator.
Thus, one of the things I like in so-called abstract painting is that that kind of painting can touch the beholder, without passing through the filter of the mind which compares, “refers to” and tends to remain imprisoned by the representation.
It is a painting which can then become a mirror for the beholder. A mirror where he can remember himself, recall his own light, his own inner center, beyond the daily routine and contingent complications. He can, in the moment of the gaze, connect with the living silence that dwells within him -- the unity which integrates the multiple facets of his identity.

In the freedom that is present in the painting, each person who beholds it feels free.
This is one of the qualities which I find valuable and which I like to see in a work.

To get back to more material considerations:

• I paint on different materials:

      prepared canvas, paper, terra-cotta, fabric, cardboard, wood.......

• I paint in different media:

      acrylic, pastel, watercolor, ink, crayons, walnut stain....

• I sometimes use collage -- of paper, fabric, organic materials.....

• The formats of my work vary from the very small to the very large. Each format implies a different surface treatment. A different solution that must be found. The monumental; grandeur and greatness and largeness do not depend on format. The experience of moving from one format to another.

• Finally, the tools used also vary:

      brushes, objects that scratch, tear, scrape
knives, hands, cloths, absorbent paper
string, grilles, corrugated cardboard, woodcut stamps, etc.

• And, of course, technique:

      solutions, glazes, impasto, sanding, ripping, collage.

• Recurring use of an invented script, used as a graphic element.

“What touches me, moves me, and fires my imagination is the richness buried in the concreteness of things (including the painted thing, of course): their truth, not the resemblances and the imagery they may receive.” (Soulages)

Elisabeth POIRET

TOP