Alain Diot

The composition of his paintings is complex and different each time, and capitalizes on the large size of the canvas. The visual work undertaken by the artist requires a similar effort at interpretation on the part of the spectator. Because his images do not lend themselves to easy or immediate perception, Alain Diot asks the spectator to go beyond the visible, to look at the paintings over and over again.

The gaze needs time, a tension must be built up that will enable the spectator to take in at a single glance, and without warning, the compositional work involved: human figures will appear, thousands of anonymous white figures in a play of intertwining bodies.

The exhibition presents two series of works. In the first (1995–1996), the blank spaces have been painted grey on an immaculate canvas covered only with primer. It is her, in this substanceless blank space, that matters forms and is revealed to the eye. Another series (1997) presents a number of fine pencil outlines and two juxtaposed blank spaces: that of the primed canvas and of the color itself. Once again, the thousands of intertwining silhouettes are not immediately apparent; we are asked to look more carefully, to look further.