Gérard Traquandi au bob orange en son atelier. / © Xavier Martinez
Gérard Traquandi
Art as pilgrimage
To start with there is observation, and drawing – drawing to look deeply at nature. Traquandi draws on the lined pages of Moleskine notebooks.
Par Dominique Juan
The first room in the Musée Cantini is devoted to his sketches and watercolours, which lead us into the creative process. If he didn’t go through this stage, he says, painting would be impossible. Later, in the studio, he sets about recreating his sensations. Traquandi is heir to the Nabi painters, looking to Vuillard or Bonnard, seeking the same spirituality but moving away from the motif. What interests him is colour, and colours. Over the course of his long career he has developed his own artistic vocabulary, superimposing colours, laying them on, «printing» them, transferring them, adding them even as pure pigment, using transparency. He adheres to rules he has laid down for himself and which, far from frustrating him, give him a wonderful freedom. His contrasts, strong or attenuated, play with complementaries, but not only. This is painterly work, a quest for light that’s tending more and more towards soft, pale shades. Deciphering the ambiguity between the light in the painting and the light that falls on it. Traquandi defines himself as a mannerist and has taken painting as his heritage. Touring the museum’s big rooms, where daylight sometimes casts transparent shadows on the subtle paintings, we’re reminded of the saying that “art is a pilgrimage”.
Exposition monographique Ici, Là / One-man show Ici, Là
Jusqu’à octobre 2021
Musée Cantini
19 rue Grignan, Marseille 6e
Tél. 04 91 55 11 11
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