A painting that reveals itself 2016
It was probably inevitable. For a long time, Gilles Teboul has claimed that he is seeking to put the painter’s gesture at a distance, using techniques of retreat, subtraction, what he calls the « non gesture ». By erasing, scraping off part of the matter which covers his canvases, he causes the undercoat of paint to rise to the surface.
With his recent paintings, he goes as far as to abolish any gestural implication of the artist in the production. The paintings are laid flat, balanced on blocks. Teboul pours on paint which spreads over the surface without his intervening in its trajectory.
Thus, the creator’s role in this fabrication is extremely limited and the work is almost entirely created at the moment of its conception. The artist is divested of his actions and set at a distance from his realizations. In other words, the physical act of painting gives way to a procedure where color, in the purist acheiropoïetic tradition, distributes itself on the canvas. This Greek term means ‘not made by the hand of man, miraculously’.
A miracle indeed, because in general, a work is an artefact whose origin can be discovered through the study of intermediate steps, sketches, preparatory drawings, from all the work, stroke by stroke, which designates it as a human production.
In this instance, when the opaque acrylic binder used by Teboul is definitively fixed, the image jumps out and reveals itself, without unveiling the secrets of its production.
Monochromes? In appearance only, because the captivated eye discovers all the rich tonalities which vibrate under the surfaces. These translucid canvases function like an aquatic mirror in which the spectator sees his reflection emerge.
Let us be reassured though. Teboul is not a magician nor is he a mystic.
He is a painter who reveals the work done behind the scenes with a series of photographs called Peinture, which he has compiled over more than 15 years. By « recycling » his worn materials, he ressuscitates them in a way. The shots showing canvases packaged up and folded, are tangible proof that an artistic gesture, however careful and distant it holds itself, always finds its origins in matter.
It was probably inevitable. For a long time, Gilles Teboul has claimed that he is seeking to put the painter’s gesture at a distance, using techniques of retreat, subtraction, what he calls the « non gesture ». By erasing, scraping off part of the matter which covers his canvases, he causes the undercoat of paint to rise to the surface.
With his recent paintings, he goes as far as to abolish any gestural implication of the artist in the production. The paintings are laid flat, balanced on blocks. Teboul pours on paint which spreads over the surface without his intervening in its trajectory.
Thus, the creator’s role in this fabrication is extremely limited and the work is almost entirely created at the moment of its conception. The artist is divested of his actions and set at a distance from his realizations. In other words, the physical act of painting gives way to a procedure where color, in the purist acheiropoïetic tradition, distributes itself on the canvas. This Greek term means ‘not made by the hand of man, miraculously’.
A miracle indeed, because in general, a work is an artefact whose origin can be discovered through the study of intermediate steps, sketches, preparatory drawings, from all the work, stroke by stroke, which designates it as a human production.
In this instance, when the opaque acrylic binder used by Teboul is definitively fixed, the image jumps out and reveals itself, without unveiling the secrets of its production.
Monochromes? In appearance only, because the captivated eye discovers all the rich tonalities which vibrate under the surfaces. These translucid canvases function like an aquatic mirror in which the spectator sees his reflection emerge.
Let us be reassured though. Teboul is not a magician nor is he a mystic.
He is a painter who reveals the work done behind the scenes with a series of photographs called Peinture, which he has compiled over more than 15 years. By « recycling » his worn materials, he ressuscitates them in a way. The shots showing canvases packaged up and folded, are tangible proof that an artistic gesture, however careful and distant it holds itself, always finds its origins in matter.