Matthieu Bouchard: Mutare Friabilis
For Matthieu Bouchard, the advent of each new painting necessarily involves the obliteration of everything that preceded it, while, simultaneously, it heralds the imminent return of the same. In other words, when starting a new piece, the artist creates a vacuum, anticipating the imminent re-emergence of all the know-how he has accumulated in the ebb and flow of his process. This implies a mixture of restraint and openness, making him a virtuoso of the liminal. While the archeology of the underpainting remains visible through the high chroma of the fine layers, each of his works opens toward physical or metaphysical horizons that are the natural domains of painting without yielding to the impulse of resolving these virtualities into definitive solutions. Taken together, the innumerable paintings form a rich repertoire of incipient syntaxes, of little secrets strewn with clues.