Our glance at
Antoine Puisais
From 08/03/2021to 06/11/2021
Self-taught painter and artist, Antoine Puisais was born in 1945. He has been living and working in Cannes for many years. Attracted in a rather brutal and instinctive way by painting, he started painting in 1998. His practice borrows a lot from painting, collage and printing. A practice that emphasizes error, failure and surprise. A kind of « reorganization of chaos ».
Here, in his own words, is an explanation of his approach: « Above all, it is important to understand that my paintings are not premeditated but discovered.
Like the archaeologist who will exhume his finds, I work on surfaces that I have revealed thanks to a singular and shaky printing method developed during my research.
I work with matrices on which the canvas - or the paper - is glued and then torn off. This process will allow me to transfer the paint but also its support with all the errors, erasures and lacks that it induces.
From the first step, it will be a question of DOING and UNDOING the painting. To play with FULL and EMPTY. To build, destroy and restore.
These surfaces are as many playgrounds on which I will be able to create bridges between the different fields that feed my practice, namely architecture, ruins, abstract painting, minimalism, graphics.
For me, the most exciting human aptitude lies in our ability to adapt. I consider each painting as a problem to be solved requiring intuition, method and happy chance. »
Although Antoine Puisais attended art school very briefly, he quickly chose a personal path, motivated by action rather than theory. From the very beginning, he experimented - he still continues to do so -, feeding off the work of his elders. Major artists will help him to reveal himself: Jean-Michel Basquiat will have a powerful impact during his early years, then Donald Baechler and, later, Christopher Wool who will lead him to abstraction. When asked to name artists whose work he particularly likes, the names of Max Bill, Calder, Henri Matisse or Cy Twombly come spontaneously.
Antoine Puisais exhibits regularly, solo exhibitions, the first of which was organized in Cannes in 1999, and collective exhibitions (Paris, Copenhagen, Turin, Miami, New York).
We hope that you will enjoy, as we did, discovering the beautiful work of this artist!
Here, in his own words, is an explanation of his approach: « Above all, it is important to understand that my paintings are not premeditated but discovered.
Like the archaeologist who will exhume his finds, I work on surfaces that I have revealed thanks to a singular and shaky printing method developed during my research.
I work with matrices on which the canvas - or the paper - is glued and then torn off. This process will allow me to transfer the paint but also its support with all the errors, erasures and lacks that it induces.
From the first step, it will be a question of DOING and UNDOING the painting. To play with FULL and EMPTY. To build, destroy and restore.
These surfaces are as many playgrounds on which I will be able to create bridges between the different fields that feed my practice, namely architecture, ruins, abstract painting, minimalism, graphics.
For me, the most exciting human aptitude lies in our ability to adapt. I consider each painting as a problem to be solved requiring intuition, method and happy chance. »
Although Antoine Puisais attended art school very briefly, he quickly chose a personal path, motivated by action rather than theory. From the very beginning, he experimented - he still continues to do so -, feeding off the work of his elders. Major artists will help him to reveal himself: Jean-Michel Basquiat will have a powerful impact during his early years, then Donald Baechler and, later, Christopher Wool who will lead him to abstraction. When asked to name artists whose work he particularly likes, the names of Max Bill, Calder, Henri Matisse or Cy Twombly come spontaneously.
Antoine Puisais exhibits regularly, solo exhibitions, the first of which was organized in Cannes in 1999, and collective exhibitions (Paris, Copenhagen, Turin, Miami, New York).
We hope that you will enjoy, as we did, discovering the beautiful work of this artist!
