N°536, Circa 2023

Aurelien Grudzien  

Creation is the absence of words. This phrase resonates within me whenever a work is completed. I never truly know what i am looking for. It is above all journey, a quest, a fight within myself. I like to face danger, it allows me to maintain a creative process. To express this force, this movement, the energy of the elements.

The calm before the storm. To take the viewer by the hand and lead him on a journey into the very depths of the substance. I enjoy playing with cement; searching for the emotional power of this material; using the creative act to express myself. To create doubt, to create something difficult, even impossible to define. To bring across the sense that in the dark chaos that sometimes takes over our lives, hope is reborn for those who know where to look for it. A fundamental human emotion, merging tragedy and ecstasy.

Aurélien Grudzien lives and works in Puygiron, in the Drôme region of France. After his studies, he went to explore the furthest reaches of the ocean through deep-sea diving, which was for him a truly self-contemplative experience.

Passionate about art and painting since his early childhood, he created his first New-York pieces at the age of 20. But for Aurélien Grudzien, oil paints and acrylics were materials which were not capable of expressing the emotions he felt within. He began working with cement when he was commissioned to create various floor frescoes and wall paintings.

There is only a short step between the floor and the wall, and Aurélien Grudzien took it. He went on to use this material in his new pieces on New-York, figurative works in which the great cement skies merge with high-rise buildings. But the substance kept gaining in power, becoming almost uncontrollable, until it was all that was left on his canvases. He wanted to transpose all the cracks and fractures, all the accidents of daily life which he perceived within this material. His first abstract pieces were born.