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Gérard GAGNEPAIN-DRAWINGS

"The need to express something that does not exist"
(Serge POLIAKOFF)

"Since my adolescence I have always liked to draw, which led me to choose the Estiennes school. I obtained my diploma thanks to the drawing tests. During many years in publishing as a graphic designer, this discipline held a very important place.

From the year 2005 to today, I have produced several thousand works   and have kept more than 2000: watercolors, pastels, charcoals, graphite, inks, chalks, washes and enamels. I do not forbid myself anything, only the result counts.

For a few years now   I have tried the experiment of drawing with my left hand, being   right-handed: the result fascinates me because this clumsy hand turns out to be full of surprises; the lines come alive and come to life. I'm amazed that this hand can move with vigor and come alive with so much passion on paper. She invests the format of the chosen paper with sometimes surprising results, ventures at random from the white sheet and tries to occupy the space imposed on her.

It arises and thus my chalk, my charcoal no longer leave their supports. Otherwise, it would be impossible for me to continue my drawing, I cannot resume a drawing."

"I have always given priority to instinct, to the instantaneous, to try to express what cannot be seen, a moment of grace...

The drawing is done in seconds. If I don't like it, I tear it up, something more difficult with canvas.

The work on paper allows me creative freedom   and to throw away what doesn't seem to be finished.

My work is done with passion, I watch myself draw. It's a fleeting moment where everything sometimes appears in less than a minute.

The perspectives that are lost in the distance inspire and fascinate me.

In the "graphic disorders", I seek above all to find the harmony of the forms applied directly on the paper.

Some landscapes are imaginary, others made on sites: Houlgate, Trouville, more chaotic Northern Brittany, the banks of the Seine...

The still lifes are totally invented. Capturing the moment, appropriating it with interlocking shapes, all traced in movement and with speed."

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