Jean Paul RaymondLight, transparency, and the luminosity of its colors are the characteristics of glass that have always enthralled people. As a child I was fascinated by the delicate transparency of flint, of which I saw artifacts in the Museum of Les Eyzies in the Dordogne Valley. The mighty animal bodies in the caves of Lascaux, just outlines, radiated a similar energy. Giacometti's sculptures in Saint Paul de Vence, the cut-and-pasted paper designs of Matisse, the profiles by Cocteau, Picasso's ceramics and assemblages: They are simple, raw, have an archaic strength. I saw all of these in my childhood. Glass is seductive, smooth, can appeal simply with its surface. To go deeper, breaking open the glass, beginning to see its relief. With overlay glass, to unpeel it. Later to work it with hammer and chisel and thermal shocks. It is sensual work and difficult to say whether the path on which the material took me reawakened my memories of childhood or whether the old images guided me. Although I love harmony, opposites have a magic appeal for me. What are 30,000 years of history, the Dordogne Valley? Today it is Cologne, Paris, Bordeaux, New York. There is the world of elegance, intellectualism, aesthetics and on the other side that of primary nature, of energy. To me, glass unites opposites. That is its appeal and its challenge. 1948 geboren in Brive, Frankreich 1967-74 Studium in Bordeaux 1977 erster Kontakt mit Glas bei Walter Couffini erstes eigenes Atelier bei Angoulême 1980 Atelier in Montcaret bei Bordeaux seit 1993 lebt und arbeitet in Köln Ausstellungen (Auswahl) 1984 Galerie Momiron, Biot 1986 Galerie d'Amon, Paris Galerie Lilos, Augsburg 1987 CCAA Glasgalerie, Köln Galerie Transparence, Brüssel 1989 Glasgalerie Kühler, Amsterdam Galerie d'Amon, Paris 1991 CCAA Glasgalerie, Köln Galerie d'Art Annie Chevalley, Montreux 1993 Glasgalerie Kühler, Amsterdam Galerie d'Amon, Paris 1994 Galerie Art du Verre Chapelotte, Luxembourg 1995 Place des Arts Polack, Montepellier 1996 Glass Art Center, Schalkwijk Galerie Èclat du Verre, Paris 2002/4/6 Galerie Mariska Dirkx, Masters in Glass Variations on Bands and Bonds, Ties and Links Jean-Paul Raymond has concentrated on a subject that is central to his oeuvre. For this exhibition, he has focused on it, varied it, and finally raised it to abstraction. Bodies, human beings, gates, bridges, couples, coincidences... They all play the role of protagonists here. Ties and links are created, are made visible, and yet remain inexplicable. A texture, which can be sensed in the relief of Jean-Paul Raymond's works, holds them together, is sometimes even recognizable as a band. Raymond captures life in all its rich- ness, in narrative as well as in its form. He creates a frame. It guides the eye and defines the detail. A body can wind, wrap itself like a band around another. Human beings, their lives interlocked. In this, movement and change are decisive; even chiseled into glass, they remain tangible. Every link is at the same time a bridge, and when we cross it, it opens like a gate, onto a new world behind. We enter it, walk through it to immerse into yet another. In real life we know this never hap- pens linearly. And thus it is useful to walk around the sculptures, to view them from different angles and to touch them. There are always new perspectives, not to mention the many different facets and refractions, edges and reflections. Something new begins. But can we pinpoint this beginning? Perhaps we sometimes recognize it in the midst of events and things that move. This is exactly what it is about after all. At the same time, light creates shadows and then lets everything come aglow again. BY U.Klotz code pour embarquer la vidéo : >>> http://www.youtube.com/embed/CKN0am5bBlI <<< |