François Mendras

Born in 1962, François Mendras lives and works in Paris. Since the end of the years 80, Francois Mendras has been creating a singular body of work: his colorful paintings in wax on wood are sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative, sometimes gestural, and sometimes so still or geometrical that they seem to be engraved.

If there is a program in his work, it is to never have a program. The creation of each painting is random. Mendras undertakes a gestural, slow process, creating forms, things that have special significations to him and that give birth to unique universes: grids, stairs, windows, Mickeys, elephants, chess pawns, characters, plants... All these constructions proclaim the strength of painting, a particular medium for which the artist, who represents himself in his paintings as a white murid, is the standrd-bearer.

"My painting is made of touches, it is a balance of powers, an uncertain try, sometimes violent, sometimes more certain, sometimes hesitant. It is a fight between an intuitive idea and a desire that seeks to break free.. The advances and setbacks are similar to the detours, the divagations and the impasses of a reasoning being developed. Once the work finished, a fusion between the energy of the idea and the constraint of the reasoning, must have the strength of a theorem!"

- François Mendras