Karls

Karls is a painter, born in 1971, in Honfleur (Normandy).

Initially figurative, mainly in the creation of portraits, Karls quickly realized that being a figure implies, at least for him, a form of major obstacle to self-realization. He finds in lyrical abstraction the freedom of expression that suits him.

Named thus by the critic José Marchand and the painter Georges Mathieu in 1947, this new pictorial language frees itself from any reference to the history of art and is defined by a direct expression of the emotional impulse launched on the canvas.

From Maître Mathieu, we know his 10 Franc coin well on a daily basis. Karls has this in common with Georges Mathieu: this common ardent desire to offer the public a sensitive and concrete relationship with art. If from a technical point of view, it is certain that not everything has been said, experienced, visited in painting, it is obvious that not everything has been explored in the relationship between this language and the public.

By performing performances, Karls places the audience in the position of spectator of the work but he also makes them the spectator of the act of creation. During Karls' performances the audience enjoys, and even participates in, the ineffable and intimate act of artistic creation. Far from considering his thinking ego as the original and unique source of creation, Karls integrates the energy of the “public" entity and places himself at the center of all the forces at play to experience their power on his soul and therefore on the web. . During a performance, Karls' works evolve according to the laws of a sort of Theory of Pictorial Chaos: he likes particularly worked backgrounds for their tragic force but also because they carry within them the seeds of the initial brushstroke of the work itself, which will induce the one after it, and so on, the canvas gradually claiming its own, organic, autonomous life.

This great humility in relation to his painting is also reflected in the choice of his formats, almost always monumental. Karls “presents himself to the canvas", in his own words. It is in this arena, where he sometimes fights non-standard canvas formats threatening to devour him, that he finds his true nourishment as an artist.

Since 2010, he has created 32 paintings in public, the most impressive of which are:

• 05/2023: 320 x 600 cm for the reception hall of the Bouygues head office construction grand Ouest
• 07/2022: 400 x 200 cm in CYPRUS for the 60th anniversary of the DGJONES AND PARTNERS group.
• 08/2022: 600 X 200 cm in HONFLEUR (14) for the artists' night.
• 05/2019: 1200 x 750 cm at the Château de Carneville (50).
• 10/2017: 326 x 114 cm at SECRET GALLERY PARIS 7.
• 05/2016: 500 x 200 cm at CLUB HAUSSMANN PARIS 9.
• 06/2016: 600 X 200 CM PALAIS D'IENA PARIS 16 for the BLACKROCK group.
• 05/2015: 570 x 195 cm in L »EGLISE DE LA MADELEINE PARIS 8.
• 05/2014: 500 x 200 cm in TROYES (10).
• 07/2012: 420 X 220 cm in BEIRUT (LEBANON) for the GENERIS foundation.
• 11/2012: 300X 150 cm at L'AUTOMOBILE CLUB DE FRANCE PARIS 8.
• 05/2011: 600 x 275 cm in COGNAC (17).