Phare des pierres noires, 2023

Alain Abramatic  

The Black Stones Lighthouse stands like a motionless beacon in the heart of a shifting landscape. Isolated off the Saint-Mathieu headland, in the commune of Le Conquet, the lighthouse appears here in direct relation to the elements, less as an architectural structure than as a presence facing the sea. Oil paint, combined with collages of paper and sand, gives the work an expressive and embodied quality. The paper lends the lighthouse a texture that is both dense and fragile, while the sand, flung in a broad and partially abstract gesture, conveys the breath of the wind and the diffuse violence of the waves. Matter becomes sensation. The light and transparent colors—softened red, gray-blue, sandy ochre—converse with the white background, left largely open and traversed by broad, energetic strokes. This white acts as a breathing space, reinforcing the tension between the vertical stability of the lighthouse and the chaotic movement of the sea. The work does not depict a specific storm. It evokes a familiar sensation: that of a fixed point facing the flow, of a standing silence amidst the tumult.

The Lighthouse of Black Stones stands out as a sensory reminder, an inner image of calm resistance and long time, capable of establishing in the space a presence that is both soothing and deeply inhabited.