Not a Landscape Painting (2021-2023)
The purpose of this series was to help me create a disruption in my painting practices as I wanted to put an end to the representation of landscape that I used to paint mostly for better understanding my proper humanity on earth.
After dedicating several years (2016-2022) to the study of philosophy, the writing of three philosophical notebooks and the making of many paintings with the great desire to find an inner peace, I felt the need to engage with this short series of 12 paintings as a means to venture beyond the bounds of my comfort zone.
I believe, like Friedrich Nietzsche, that freedom needs a frame to be fully experienced, and because of this belief I always set some rules for my series of artworks so I can play better with the boundaries that I test constantly. The rules for this series consisted of a unique vertical format 72”x50”; three colors only for each painting organized in a triadic harmony, plus eventually some white and black for the tints and shades; four paintings with the same color and three subgroups of these four paintings which allowed the series to revolve around the color wheel.
The title, Not A landscape Painting is clear enough to show my original intention even though the paintings initially evolved from some landscape photographs I discovered online and used mainly as a compositional design. Because I didn’t take the pictures myself and because I was genuinely attracted by the composition it facilitated my first wish to make paintings that were not directly influenced by the aesthetic of a space. I understand that it may sound twisted for some readers; however, my strategy did work in the end as you will see in the following pages.
It is noticeable in the first group of four paintings that two of them are already trying to escape the traditional landscape representation; it is also interesting to note that in some paintings the sky is very present in different forms. A posteriori, I can say the presence of the sky in this series was for me the beginning of a new way to see the world and to reconsider my relationship with our planet. The sky will be the main component of a new series of paintings I started right after I finished this one. I titled it, “Que ma volonté soit défaite sur la terre comme au ciel” which is a recontextualization of an excerpt from a catholic prayer that I used to hear as an altar boy.
The third and last group of four paintings in this series has been a real surprise to me. I used to dislike painting human figures in the middle of a landscape, as I found that the presence of the bodies disrupted my trance-like state while I painted with the canvas beneath my bare feet. I formerly preferred to represent human figures through sculpture; but here, intuitively, some new possibilities arose. The process of drawing the figure with a pencil on the canvas, the use of a new material (felt blanket) that I cut with scissors mixed with my recent interest for prehistory and the evolution of mankind, participated in the birth of another new series that I’ve titled ‘Bas-reliefs.’ Consequently, I decided to investigate this new field of possibilities at the same time as I am working on the new series mentioned earlier.
After dedicating several years (2016-2022) to the study of philosophy, the writing of three philosophical notebooks and the making of many paintings with the great desire to find an inner peace, I felt the need to engage with this short series of 12 paintings as a means to venture beyond the bounds of my comfort zone.
I believe, like Friedrich Nietzsche, that freedom needs a frame to be fully experienced, and because of this belief I always set some rules for my series of artworks so I can play better with the boundaries that I test constantly. The rules for this series consisted of a unique vertical format 72”x50”; three colors only for each painting organized in a triadic harmony, plus eventually some white and black for the tints and shades; four paintings with the same color and three subgroups of these four paintings which allowed the series to revolve around the color wheel.
The title, Not A landscape Painting is clear enough to show my original intention even though the paintings initially evolved from some landscape photographs I discovered online and used mainly as a compositional design. Because I didn’t take the pictures myself and because I was genuinely attracted by the composition it facilitated my first wish to make paintings that were not directly influenced by the aesthetic of a space. I understand that it may sound twisted for some readers; however, my strategy did work in the end as you will see in the following pages.
It is noticeable in the first group of four paintings that two of them are already trying to escape the traditional landscape representation; it is also interesting to note that in some paintings the sky is very present in different forms. A posteriori, I can say the presence of the sky in this series was for me the beginning of a new way to see the world and to reconsider my relationship with our planet. The sky will be the main component of a new series of paintings I started right after I finished this one. I titled it, “Que ma volonté soit défaite sur la terre comme au ciel” which is a recontextualization of an excerpt from a catholic prayer that I used to hear as an altar boy.
The third and last group of four paintings in this series has been a real surprise to me. I used to dislike painting human figures in the middle of a landscape, as I found that the presence of the bodies disrupted my trance-like state while I painted with the canvas beneath my bare feet. I formerly preferred to represent human figures through sculpture; but here, intuitively, some new possibilities arose. The process of drawing the figure with a pencil on the canvas, the use of a new material (felt blanket) that I cut with scissors mixed with my recent interest for prehistory and the evolution of mankind, participated in the birth of another new series that I’ve titled ‘Bas-reliefs.’ Consequently, I decided to investigate this new field of possibilities at the same time as I am working on the new series mentioned earlier.