Page 154 - THELIN
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APPROACHES by Philippe Thélin
“ A painter is lost when he finds himself.” Max Ernst The close attention to observation, the
sense of composition, the juxtaposition of
complementary colours, the drawing by
Painting is a silent act. It means for me the colour, colour as a vibration, my own
expressing internal conflicts and not eruptive ecstasy, vagueness or precision, the
considering real life’s illusions nor the wanted clumsiness or the delicate stroke of
evolution of our society. My work is lyrical the brush on the canvas are as a whole my
and would tend to succeed in exorcising working tools.
ghosts of yesteryear and buried recollections
in order to give them a new life through the Erotomaniac by the colour, satirist by the
colour’s vibration, by means of thick and drawing, I confusedly search for a mad
violent strokes. excitation that would deliver me from the
inner sluggishness because the good fortune
Painting is to struggle with the outline of of painting has a deep complicity with a
the drawing against the spread of colours, flashing form of madness, of excess, which
it means drawing straight into the paint to allows encounters in the innermost being.
confer it edginess and swiftness. The subject
itself is of minor importance. To scratch, to As for me, absolute references are for
trace, to burst, to spread, to mix, to throw, example Frans Hals, Caravage, Rembrandt,
to erase, to strike out, to gloss, to veil, to Rubens, Goya, Manet, Berthe Morisot, Van
soil, to finger-paint and knife-paint, all these Gogh, Anders Zorn, Singer Sargent, Lovis
express the un-mastered violence of that Corinth, Munch, Matisse, Kirchner, Boldini,
hand-to-hand fight. Sorolla, Manguin or else Soutine, de Kooning,
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