Jean-François Contremoulin

Painting is a necessity. This expression, this language are for me the best way to understand and integrate into my immediate environment.

My expressionist language is imbued with abstraction. It is for me the translation of my feelings of the world, of life, of matter, of my gaze on women, humans, portraits, self-portraits, the environment, plants, water, vibration. My painting is essentially emotive and sensual. No need to show my women or men, my landscapes in their entirety. Only a few details and movements are enough for me to seek to reach my quintessence: vibration. Then the occupation of the colored spot in the paper space or the canvas becomes decisive.

The portrait has fascinated me since childhood and the self-portrait punctuates my life, my career as a painter. It is a milestone in the evolution of my pictorial and plastic approach.

Sensory and gestural, my practice of watercolor is very personal to me, based on a powerful relationship with water and drawing.

With oil, I feel close to the masters of the past. I prepare all my supports and grind my colors.

Engraving and sculpture retain the gesture, either free it, or impose a line, a volume... I provoke the material and take advantage of its gifts.

Jean-François Contremoulin, June 2019