A presentation of the abstract writing of Jean-Jacques Marie.
The artist invites us to his studio to discover what characterizes him: a spontaneous gesture, a translation of his emotions.
For the first time, he entrusts his state of mind in the creation phase.
Video text :
"I am only the instrument between spirit and the material. Only what I do matters."
Traces, curves, tasks ... A brush free of any constraint ... A spontaneous and sincere gesture ... These are the ingredients of the abstract writing of Jean-Jacques Marie.
"For me, sincerity is a guarantee of authenticity in personal expression."
Jean-Jacques Marie reserves a great part to the improvisation and cultivates the instantaneous pictorial gesture to give breath and emotion to his creations. The composition becomes more a drive than the result of a reflection. The essential being to preserve sincerity and authenticity.
In exploring the line and the task, Jean-Jacques Marie seeks to translate his emotions, intimates and states of mind, whatever they may be. This explains the great diversity of his creations.
"Before starting a work, I connect to my senses, my emotion, which gives access to a great asceticism in the exercise of self-knowledge. This brings another dimension to all creations.
I do not do calligraphy. I do not interpret any image of the real. My works have no title; They are compositions. How to give a title to spirituality ? The spectator can meditate, question himself, and find the art that will touch him at the deepest."
This attraction for abstraction is very recent and stems from a change as brutal as capital.
Born in the Paris region, from a modest background, Jean-Jacques Marie is very interested in art in all its forms at a very early stage of his life. At a very young age, he regularly attended museums and galleries without the knowledge of his parents. It was only around the age of 40 that he could devote his life to painting.
Subjugated by the light that springs from the colors, he studied the optical through the different artistic currents and flourished in poetic writing. He already favors the expression and transmission of the emotional rather than the worry of realism.
"At first, I was interested in figurative painting which is the interpretation of a subject. Of course, one must have learned the basic technical bases: the conceptions, the colors, the complementary and so on ... What quickly put me on the road to light more than on the subject. I was attracted by optical mixtures, the law of simultaneous color contrast of the Physicist Chevreul. I have been working on this theme for many years.
Then my attraction, I would say my love, for the Chinese ink is revealed in parallel and introduces me to the avant-garde Asian calligraphy. I am then bewitched, transported into the fourth dimension. It was a revelation !"
A 180 ° turn is then produced: It is now fully and unlimitedly expressed in abstraction.
"You are not unaware that Marcel Duchamp did not like the abstract because for him the interest was purely retinal. I conclude that my works are retinal for the viewer, but as a "readymade", they make him work his mind and discover art where he did not see it at first."
His work remains punctuated by surprising variations of execution, reflections of its moods, and its internal shocks. We discover thus very powerful, almost aggressive creations or on the contrary, very soft, very musical, light and vaporous.
Some very structured achievements contain guidelines, a kind of recipe that drives the viewer to enter the composition and then loose in sometimes unlikely prospects. Others are only informal forms and improvised tasks, enticing divagation and escape.
All the works of Jean-Jacques Marie are born according to the same psychical process calling for procedural memory and spontaneous writing, supported by an intense preconditioning.
"I love working on paper; I love working on wood because they are rigid supports.
My method has two phases of realization. First I make my chassis then my funds that I work enormously to have a certain resonance that suits me. The second phase is spirituality, that is, the work itself.
I use acrylic or Chinese ink with sometimes “brou de noix”. Black is a color that I especially like much like Soulage, Marfaing, Kline, Verdier, Motherwell and many others."
Jean-Jacques Marie claims a classical filiation, the spontaneous gestural and the sincerity of the expression being ultimately what dominates his work. His unusual background as well as his important production make him a margin of current trends in the art world.