Alain Rousseau
France
French artist living in China and France, Alain ROUSSEAU give the name of chromobscur to his paintings because it refers to the chiaroscuro technique, inspired by Spanish and Flemish painters of the 16th century in Europe. The bright colors that flood in his paintings illuminate them without resorting to chromatic techniques of impressionism. He paints the living beings to experience feelings and emotions. He focuses on the psychology of the subject in bright colors; his style the "chromobscur" uses a dark and non-figurative background. The subject itself is composed of dazzling colors, even violent, with energetic brush strokes recalling the ways of Impressionism and Cubism to shake up conventions.
Volutes (swirls 螺旋) 2020 oil on canvas 80x80cm
1. What’s your background?
I am a French artist, graduated at Belgium Saint-Luc university with Bachelor of Arts in Architecture, Drawing and Painting. At Belgium Higher Institute of Media and Public Relations I obtain a Master Degree in Communications. I hold a Master Degree in Economics and Enterprise Management at the Paris-Dauphine University. At the Art School in Strasbourg I attended the class of the French painter Pascal Antony, former student of Paolo Conti, famous Italian painter of Academia di Bella Arti of Florence.
I am a contemporary artist who is not only familiar with the psychology of but also involved in this theme, creating series of paintings in oil on canvas. Currently living and working in China and France, essentially painting living beings which are morphopsychological studies to feel impressions and share emotions with the subject. These subjects painted in an expressive style are inviting us to enter into dialogue with the characters. It is not unimportant, that before I start my artistic career, I had to observe and dissect the records of many candidates for recruitment and call morphopsychology and physiognomony. As Director of Human Resources in major international companies I took on responsibility for many members. Therefore the face is for me a great sense vector providing access to an approach of the personality. In reviewing his artistic concepts, I explain the meaning behind my series: “There are similarities in the way we look of a rooster or a horse that may have imperial eyes, a domineering or benevolently posture. During the process of painting, it happens that I think of a person but paint a rooster, because they are similar in the profile. Regarding the people, I observe their attitudes, studying their codes on how to hold a cigarette in the hand or mouth, using the symbolism of these attitudes for my compositions.”
2. What does your work aim to say?
Since the invention of photography, which for me revolutionized painting, painters are no longer the witnesses of their time because they had, often on orders, to produce faithful works representing with as much authenticity as possible the characters they painted for their posterity. Today photography occupies this segment very effectively. I therefore consider that a painter no longer has this mission and can represent the characters as they feel rather than as they are. Having settled in Chengdu (China) for eight years, I combined my courses at the University with the exercise of my passion, painting, to which I devoted myself frantically. And that's when I really freed myself from the constraints that all students have with painting, knowing how to create without sticking to the models of the great masters. I now compare a little the situation of my beginnings, to that of the small boat glued to a large liner whose size seemed so enormous, like the great painters; and then over time, moving away from it, this liner becomes a small point on the horizon and it goes from a must-have model to a simple reference. During this time, I got to know my Sichuan environment and merged with the people I met wherever I went to mingle with their life. I am also in perfect harmony with the artists I have met in Chengdu since I became a member of the Chengdu Artists Association. I was carried by the hectic atmosphere that reigns in the city that I have seen change from day to day and the havens of peace represented by the many tea houses where the art of Chengdu is so well cultivated. life and time while sipping one of the many green teas while nibbling on a few appetizers. At this moment the moments slip by like sand between the fingers and time crumbles in all serenity. On this occasion Chinese culture, its calligraphy and the art of all Chinese artists penetrate through every pore and influence my mind. Living for a long time in China, watching the works of Chinese painters as well as taking traditional Chinese painting lessons with an old master in Chengdu in his time have positively influenced my creation. In particular the concentration in which the painter puts himself before starting his work, a reflection of his introspection, the emptiness or white that he systematically leaves in his painting to leave the front door open in his work, which in my case is materialized by the subject's eye (don't we say that it is the mirror of the soul!)
3. How does your work comment on current social or political issues?
If one wants to keep together fractures of time, in painting, this can happen as in my paintings. My technique, the “Chromobscur” leans loosely on the classic painterly tradition, as it contains both the meaning of the chiaroscuro and the Greek word for color. While in Chinese traditional painting there is always a white space in order to invite the spectator into the painting, (and the French painter Paul Cezanne, whose works consist of many canvases with such white spaces, hence he was also named the “incomplete” or “unaccomplished. You may enter by looking for the eyes behind that veil, as this is also my classic way to construct any of my portraits. I am beginning the painting with the eye. Although mostly contrasted by dark colors, these vibrant faces connect by their colors, evoking each by each their persona through each individual choice of a color palette. And yet, any of these colors, if we see all portraits next to each other, just flow out of the very same artistic source. And while they all stem mostly from the artists memory, or are sometimes inspired by magazine photography, they seem to be brought to light by the act of painting them out of the dark. Memory here works as a transmutation; it is embedded in each one`s own vision and is heralded simply by watching and bringing together what we carry with us individually. Hence, they stem out of memory and out of a collective pool of images just as much. These acquaintances may have been brief as a flirt, short as a shared cigarette only, however they are brought to longevity in painting.
4. Who are your biggest influences?
Regarding my technique it strikes, that my portraits are focused on the psychology of the character in bright colors, but the background is painted monochrome black. I names my style "chromobscur", based on two main elements: first the background, inspired by the Flemish and Spanish painters of the 16th century, including the Chiaroscuro that is dark and not figurative. In the second step I am using violent colors suggesting Impressionism and Cubism attitudes to overcome the conventions. In my studies I have been influenced by history of art, architecture, cult movies and their dramaturgy, among them “Stagecoach” by John Ford, “Armoured Cruiser Potemkin” by Sergei Eisenstein or “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa. Another influence is caused by my working experience at television studios, sets and photo shootings, close to multi media, journalism, photography and advertising.
5. How has your art evolved over the years?
The main colors of the paintings are imperial purple on black background, added with an alternating imperial purple and gold Byzantine elements, like mosaics in the roosters gorgeous feathers. These colors are typically associated with royal power in Byzantium. The subjects are placed in the center which visually enlarge them. The use of oil on large canvases is deliberate for another reason. Because of their size, the portraits work on a representational level. On closer inspection, the image echoes the qualities possessed by the eye and the camera for zooming on the subject. It concerns with the relationship between the flesh and the self and continues to be a significant factor in the development of painting portraits. In addition, employing a black, neutral ground, the work attempts to get to grips with the respective qualities of the photo snap shot, both universally familiar but defying any specific interpretation. In this rejection of the use of visual props and the accompanying symbolism, I force the audience into a position of responsibility and accountability with regard to the old favourite, no man is an island. My paintings are characterized by sympathy and irony but not overarching sentiment. The raw authenticity of portraits dominates in my oeuvre. The paintings burst with tiny expressionistic specs and dashes of oil on canvas that build to gloriously portraits in all their splendor. It is obviously this unflinching documentation of truth that defines my visual work.6. What does art mean to you?Going to the spectator's superego is, it seems, the final goal of art and the action it should seek to achieve. By considering it from this angle, by asking what is the operation that it performs, we can notice that the content of art is linked to the essence of man and to his spirit, which its goal aims to reveal to the soul all that it contains that is essential. It gives us the real-life experience, transports us to situations that our personal experience would not have allowed us to realize and allows us to feel in depth what is happening inside us and agitating us. This is what art wants to represent, and it does so through appearance which, as such, is indifferent to us, from the moment it serves to awaken in us the apprehension of something that is beyond us. It helps us to find the path of buried feelings which represent our true values. Art acts by appealing to all the feelings which move in the depths of the human mind, their power and their diversity, and by integrating into the field of our tangible experience what is woven in the depths of the meanders of the 'soul. I also believe that art is the way the universe translates itself and flourishes through our hands which are the extenders of the spirit. It represents everything that we can share with others that will cause an emotion of love, sharing or even anger, rejection, or shock. Art is the mirror of life which it serves to magnify and which allows the spirit to be uplifted. It designates the creations of man aimed at expressing his sensitive vision of the real or imaginary world. Art is the product of an idea of a situation that is deliberately addressed to the senses, emotions and intuitions.
7. What’s the most valuable piece of art to you?
Saint John of the Cross by Salvador DALI. Its plunging perspective is original, hitherto unknown in Western art, in this case the crucified Christ which overhangs a rocky gulf, (lagoon landscape, bathed in a twilight light which is the port Lligat its adopted village). Her beautifully designed body is adorned with a golden color in warm light. His head falls back on his chest. The subject, the composition, the expression, the staging and the colors become part of the work without one aspect prevailing over the others. Several details show that Salvador Dali was interested in the history of art and imbibed it to create a timeless art. His Christ touches us and we become, by the power of his gaze, the spectator of what is outside the painting, thus calling out to us to solicit our participation in the scene. As my television and film culture instilled in me, I love to use the magic of cinema and the search for physical perfection linked to Hollywood myths to sublimate the beauty of the painted beings. The faithful transcription of dreams has always held a considerable place in Dali's work and he was familiar with psychoanalysis and the work of Freud as it can be found subliminally in my paintings of women who smoke. He also stated "the theory of a 'nuclear mysticism' and of an 'atomic art' which by the disintegration of particle form will express spiritual entity beyond the continuity of matter. " As I like to do in my paintings using the chromobscur technique, in Dali's painting the cross is placed on a black background while usually luminous clouds envelop Christ and light up the earth. A very beautiful light emanates from the earth in opposition to the darkness of the sky. I draw a lot of inspiration from his technique of contrasts and violent colors in my work. With the exception of its elevated position in relation to the landscape, no embellishments obstruct the viewer's vision. His technique of diving and plunging inherited from the cinema speaks to me a lot. He also acts against the grain, as I like to do, in relation to the canons of traditional painting, preferring to show a Christ of great beauty, serene, alone far from the images of Epinal. In addition, the extreme simplification of its representation by enclosing it in a triangle is not without evoking early Christian art, a symbolism in which I find my influences from the Flemish masters. Salvador Dali's “atomic” and “mystical” simplification of Christ therefore joins the sources of Christian art by reducing the Savior to a triangle enclosing a circle. Thanks to this painting, which was exhibited a lot, the museum space thus became an extension of the sacred space of the Church. I very much appreciate Dali's technical skill, his ease of painting, his qualities as a director and that colorist. Fifty years later this painting haunts me and still influences me.
8. What’s next for you in the future?
There are now only two things left for me to achieve in my life as a painter given my age: to put into practice the motto of the great Sino-Indonesian collector Budi Tek, namely: "Believe, hope, love" and while my name is already famous all over the world (the writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the painter Henri Rousseau "known as the customs officer" and Théodore Rousseau the founding painter of the Barbizon school), it only remains for me to succeed in making myself a first name!
Le doute (The doubt怀疑 ) 50x70cm oil on canvas
