ENG​

At first sight, Gerard Charruau’s cityscapes seem to inherit art history as well as history of architecture and town planning. His pictorial work, although it takes roots in his many travels around the world, is not a documentary one, no more than a topographical or encyclopedic one. It’s not neither a photographic work that he would have translated straight out in pictorial words. Gérard Charruau 'builds' his landscape in an aesthetic gesture of subtleness by covering the canvas with a thin layer of organic paper that acts like a filter. This paper, obtained in Vietnam and whose function is initially unrefined, becomes here a height of refinement, blurring the vision like in haziness. Artist and nomad, Gerard Charruau is a more contemporary artist than he believes to be, in his nearly romantic way to invite us to “get lost in the city” with him. When not traveling, the artist lives and works in Paris.

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FR

Gérard Charruau élabore son paysage, sa vision, à travers un geste esthétique subtil de recouvrement et de mise à distance, grâce à un filtre de papier végétal qu'il maroufle sur ses toiles en un fin grillage. Ce papier, d'usage initialement trivial, atteint ici le comble du raffinement, créant un trouble tel une brume qui entoure la vision. Ainsi, cet écran diaphane suggère la sensation d'un souvenir, l'impression d'un vécu, une image mémorielle. La délicatesse de ces visions estompées active notre imaginaire, cette puissante "fonction de l'irréel", et engendre des rencontres émotionnelles avec le peintre autant qu'avec le paysage qui se révèle sous nos yeux. Né en 1953, Gérard Charruau vit et travaille à Paris.