Gerard Traquandi "New Works" Solo Exhibition

Text / Chen Chi-Hsiang. Dates: September 5 to October 10. Venue: Laurent Godin Gallery. Gerard Traquandi (born 1952) is one of France's rare contemporary abstract painters, characterized by a highly emotional, improvisational, and lyrical brushwork. Within both figurative and formless abstraction, these works stem from personal life memories; forms exist in recollection and numerous sketches. The artist states: "Painting is held in the tension between two facts, that is, within the picture and in reality, abandoning an immutable display for the effect of a sensitive perception." Recently, the painter has explored the novel concept of traces through sketching, photography, printing, reproduction, and painting, thereby isolating his own body and actions, allowing everything to retain an experience of sensual vitality where color, form, and movement remain indeterminate. Art critic Xavier Girard writes: "(...) Traquandi's new series of paintings on traces comes only from something ordinary and basic or primitive, nothing special. (...) The resulting paintings of the trace process remove as much as they add; vivid space emerges from large sketches resembling open plant forms. A double motion strikes this stillness and activates the composition, manifesting in the generation between two areas that are not yet dry and formless."