Jean Rouaud, winner of the 1990 Prix Goncourt, defines Gérard Eppelé as follows:
- How is Eppelé?
- Like everyone else, he's moving: that is to say, from one point in his life to another, according to a very ancient law of nature which dictates that we must submit to time. We cannot escape this dictate of time. Every work of art worthy of the name says this. And that is why Eppelé signs his work with dignity. And persists.
- What is your passion, Mr. Eppelé?
- Looking at memory.
For us, Gérard Eppelé is a major artist, and the obscurity through which his work is currently perceived in no way diminishes its significance or the fact that he will very likely be called upon to return to the light. His work is rare in several respects. The first is that the artist, throughout his sixty-year career, has not wavered in his message. Gérard Eppelé is a commentator, and his only ambition, as Jean Rouaud suggests, was to establish a chronicle of the events he witnessed. These notes, taken throughout his life, are further reinforced by the fact that each work bears a number, assigned chronologically in ascending order. These numbers are recorded in notebooks and serve both as a certificate of authenticity and the framework for what could become a catalogue raisonné. This structure reveals that we are dealing with an eminently personal work, a kind of diary that conveys a sense of inexhaustible flow through the sheer number of pages, which nevertheless manage to maintain a consistent focus and demonstrate remarkable quality. Indeed, the most significant and prominent characteristic of Gérard Eppelé's work is its homogeneity. But the work is also singularly distinctive in its arrangement and graphic style. A work by Gérard Eppelé is recognizable first and foremost by its line. This style is cursive, multifaceted, and seems suspended in space. Its density creates contrasts that reveal forms where classical lines would merely outline them. The general configurations appear quickly, but it takes time for the eye to decipher the details. A witness to his time, like the small observer who peruses almost all of his works, Gérard Eppelé travels the world, casts an astonished gaze upon it, tries to understand it, and watches, mesmerized, the tragic fate of humankind.
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