"I do not make contemporary art."
This statement alone disqualifies my art to ever appear in a “Salon,” a “biennale” or an art museum. Let’s make it worse : “I believe in beauty and aesthetics.” Now I am really doomed ! I have been reading about how we moved supposedly forward from the great master’s paintings to “artist shit” in a can by Piero Manzoni and a banana taped on a wall by Maurizo Cattelan. In all my readings about contemporary art it is said that painting is dead, beauty is dead, aesthetic is dead and it is not reversible. According to the “laws” of contemporary art, an artist cannot follow back the threads of art history and paint or sculpt like the old masters did. Doing so makes you an outcast artist in the twenty first century art world, it makes you an living anachronism.
I am proud to be an outcast painter. I do not want to fit in the official art world that has been pushed forward since the 1960’s. I believe in emotions. I paint with these emotions and I find happiness in doing so. I do not mind that Maurizo Cattelan sells a banana taped on a wall for millions or Salvatore Garau sells an invisible sculpture. What deeply disturbs me is that the official art world casts out anyone who does not follow the contemporary art “rules” and states that anything before 1960 is obsolete.
I paint “happiness” and “the joy of life” (doomed again). I am not following any other rules, art movement, directives than my own inspiration, my own heart. My paintings carry part of my life, my experiences, my pains and they are filled with my emotions. Sometimes viewers are touched by these emotions and they pour their own emotions in my paintings. When a six year old girl from a primary school tells me “I would love to live in your paintings,” there is nothing that makes me happier and content.
Benjamin Olivennes writes in his book "L'autre Art contemporain, vrais artistes et fausses valeurs édition Bernard Grasset. " (The other contemporary art, true artists and false values, Bernard Grasset editions) : "I still believe in beauty, which we are told is an outdated concept. It is true that if I want to find value in what I see in a contemporary art museum, I should get rid of this outdated notion. But why would I agree to do so, when beauty is a natural human need, and I continue to seek it everywhere else in my life, in my home, in my loves, in the ways I dress, in my walks."
Art is sharing. Art induces emotions. Art invites discussions.
Art is not a currency.
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