Frédéric Zangrandi

Frédéric Zangrandi lives and works in Saint-Etienne (FR)

“The work begun at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Saint-Etienne and continued thereafter relates to a contemporary exploration of pictorial material through representation; a problem addressed throughout the last century (from Monet’s “Water Lilies” to the work of Gerhard Richter or Bernard Frize) and still raising questions today.

The subjects chosen as pretexts for a figural experiment come from the fields of biology, science, and the subjective detail of natural elements, whether small, infinitely small or infinitely large. These offer an infinite range of possibilities for appropriation. Once extracted from their experimental framework as study objects, these subjects appear anew through artistic experience. For example, the representation of chemical reactions within a cell can emerge through a number of other chemical reactions, those of the materials used by the artist. Experience gives image to experience. This distancing, coupled with a reframing and transposition of the subject to a new scale, creates uncertain significance, which is necessary for blur, drift, and loss to emerge in the viewer’s gaze.

What process did nature follow to construct a seashell? What process will I use to represent it? I reach a framework of expression by constructing an image of construction. That is how one can lose oneself in the motifs of a carpet or a tapestry. For me, this creates a space for sensations and intimate propositions. I can play with the irony of this arbitrary confusion.

Painting is not the only medium offering such a space for contemplation. One might also cite the work of Philip Glass in music, or Andrei Tarkovsky in cinema.”

- Frédéric Zangrandi