Pierre-André Martin
Listed on the AKOUN
Originally from the Aude region and from a family of wine growers, PIERRE-ANDRÉ MARTIN began painting in oils as a teenager, no doubt inspired by the vine stocks that run in tight rows on the generously curved hillsides.
The artist likes to magnificently unfold a sky full of personal stories, thus opening the horizon to an ecstatic ballet of colours, shapes, signs and symbols. Fragments of life and geometric signals that are witnesses of a long journey, as we sense it. "My painting tells the happy moments of my life", he says. As an urban architect living in Montpellier, he has always been fascinated by the harbour façades and their reflections in the water. One can only smile and marvel, gazing at all these sidereal spaces bursting with colours and rhythms, set in multiple scarves lifted by the wind of inspiration. Magnificent variations are inscribed like scores on canvas backgrounds. It is so good to live near the quays, not far from the cicadas, so close to the traditions, invited by the voice of the tenor Georges Thill to discover the sites and travel the paths of life... in song. A warm and fabulous atmosphere of rare intensity.
We find the spirit of festive garlands, the proliferation of ornaments as in Gaudi and the multitude of multicoloured motifs like the works of the Austrian painter-architect ecologist Hundertwasser. The artist was probably also influenced in his high school years by the crenellated ramparts of Carcassonne, the mild climate and the warm colours of the roofs and walls of Toulouse and Albigensia during his architectural studies at the Beaux-Arts, and then by the facades and iconographic wealth of the museums of Paris while completing his architectural studies at the Beaux-Arts and attending the Le Maresquier studio.
In Pierre-André Martin's works, we can see a great freedom in the use of plastic referents.
One can speak here of a fantastic realism because of the profusion of abstract motifs, figures and "significant" objects scattered in the upper space of the great majority of the paintings. He even seems to establish a link between the poetics evoked in the works of Paul Klee and the abstract constructivism of Kandinsky's compositions. We cannot remain insensitive to such a spectacle.
A welcome saving art is revealed to us: a beautiful symphony freed from spatial constraints, exalting the artist's experience with originality. It is a whole poetry that emanates from it, a chromatic cosmology that illuminates us and pushes us towards wonder. He even says: "The sky represents infinity". This hymn dedicated to creation, experience and encounters is another way of making visible this secret aspiration to live fully, ...to become...to dream most certainly...to meditate.
The great maturity of this complete artist invites us to reconsider the relationship between earth and sky, through these sumptuous frescoes which attempt to free themselves from gravity. Perhaps a call to a living spirituality, rooted in a fulfilled humanity... To be discovered or seen again. If you are still hesitating, look at all these skies and you will be seized with a feeling of exaltation!
The artist likes to magnificently unfold a sky full of personal stories, thus opening the horizon to an ecstatic ballet of colours, shapes, signs and symbols. Fragments of life and geometric signals that are witnesses of a long journey, as we sense it. "My painting tells the happy moments of my life", he says. As an urban architect living in Montpellier, he has always been fascinated by the harbour façades and their reflections in the water. One can only smile and marvel, gazing at all these sidereal spaces bursting with colours and rhythms, set in multiple scarves lifted by the wind of inspiration. Magnificent variations are inscribed like scores on canvas backgrounds. It is so good to live near the quays, not far from the cicadas, so close to the traditions, invited by the voice of the tenor Georges Thill to discover the sites and travel the paths of life... in song. A warm and fabulous atmosphere of rare intensity.
We find the spirit of festive garlands, the proliferation of ornaments as in Gaudi and the multitude of multicoloured motifs like the works of the Austrian painter-architect ecologist Hundertwasser. The artist was probably also influenced in his high school years by the crenellated ramparts of Carcassonne, the mild climate and the warm colours of the roofs and walls of Toulouse and Albigensia during his architectural studies at the Beaux-Arts, and then by the facades and iconographic wealth of the museums of Paris while completing his architectural studies at the Beaux-Arts and attending the Le Maresquier studio.
In Pierre-André Martin's works, we can see a great freedom in the use of plastic referents.
One can speak here of a fantastic realism because of the profusion of abstract motifs, figures and "significant" objects scattered in the upper space of the great majority of the paintings. He even seems to establish a link between the poetics evoked in the works of Paul Klee and the abstract constructivism of Kandinsky's compositions. We cannot remain insensitive to such a spectacle.
A welcome saving art is revealed to us: a beautiful symphony freed from spatial constraints, exalting the artist's experience with originality. It is a whole poetry that emanates from it, a chromatic cosmology that illuminates us and pushes us towards wonder. He even says: "The sky represents infinity". This hymn dedicated to creation, experience and encounters is another way of making visible this secret aspiration to live fully, ...to become...to dream most certainly...to meditate.
The great maturity of this complete artist invites us to reconsider the relationship between earth and sky, through these sumptuous frescoes which attempt to free themselves from gravity. Perhaps a call to a living spirituality, rooted in a fulfilled humanity... To be discovered or seen again. If you are still hesitating, look at all these skies and you will be seized with a feeling of exaltation!
Chris CANTER-BRIENS, art critic
