FABLES AND FANTASY

La danse et les pies - 2013


I looked right through my files to see when I last spoke about Gérard Garouste - and found nothing. Yet I have a very vivid memory of writing a chapter about this French painter. Perhaps I dreamt it. 

In actual fact I was off to see « The Happy Show » at la Gaiété Lyrique and the Galerie Templon, one our most important, was on the way. I stopped in to have a look.

This exhibition , « Unspeakable Tales » journeys into the world of myths and fables, a voyage the artist uses to evoke universal questions such as our relationship to time, other people and knowledge. He has already done this research in earlier painting such as  Goethe’s Faust in 2011. This time around he has not chosen to confine himself to a single subject: paintings, gouaches and sculptures are given a dreamlike structure. It’s an auto portrait each time and I gather he is suggesting that knowledge is enriched by means of a two-tiered interpretation, based on what reason tells when we are necessarily guided by our imagination. In my book the question that could be asked « do his painting need a title or is our imagination better? »


These “subliminal images”, built around memories  and associations between ideas, contain a panoply of references, from Tintin and Snowy in Hergé’s comics to the Talmud, La Fontaine’s fables and Ashkenazi legends, from Don Quixote and Faust to art history, Grünewald, Millet and romantic landscapes.

I wonder if  the public understand this? I was surprised how many people were in the gallery or galleries as there were two  to visit. Some of his work really makes me smile and I suppose  one can play the guessing game concerning the references. Some are obvious, some in my book are a little vulgar and others I couldn’t fathom out at all. It’s not always easy to focus on 30 odd paintings and see a face which appears to be the same in different situations.

Here are a few of them.


LE CREPUSCULE  1913 - sunset

IONA 2013

LE CENTAURE ET LE NID D'OISEAU 2013

LE FAUNE 2013

DON QUICHOTTE 2013

DON QUICHOTTE ET LES LIVRES BRULES 2013

L'ANGE ET LE DEMON 2012

LE NID SUR LA MER 2013

LE SARCOPHAGE 2012

L'AMAZONE ET LA LICORNE 2013

L'HERON AU LONG BEC EMMANCHE d'un LONG COU 2013
LE LIEVRE ET LA TORTUE A L'ENVERS 2013

Garouste  (born March 10, 1946) is also an illustrator, and decorator. Since 1979, he has lived and worked in Marcilly-sur-Eure in the department of Eure. He has international recognition. I don’t make an effort to see his work but like today if there is a gallery with his work and I’m on my way to see something else - I’ll pop in.

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