Outremer, 2024

Franck Noto  

Time. An inexorable parameter, a witness to evolution. Energy. Rhythmed by its variations. Gesture. Defined by the emotion felt in the moment.

Franck Noto, firmly rooted in the here and now, draws inspiration from a tempo that is sometimes frenetic and somber, sometimes gentle and luminous. Driven by a range of emotions he cannot name, he lets gesture and color speak for themselves, like ephemeral interpreters. Following the rhythms and frequencies that populate his works, like notes invading a score to create a melody with multiple variations, his emotions govern this driving force that sometimes propels him toward a frenzied pace and at other times toward a welcome sense of peace.

Time seems suspended when, during a moment of contemplation, standing before his canvas, he refines his thoughts, aligning his gesture with what he feels there, now. This time that he stages by playing with the imperceptible. This time, which may alter or highlight a line, a color, as it might affect the character traits of an individual, is not enough to erase what will remain intact. Like the emotion of the moment, which will leave a trace of its passage on the visible surface of the work, but whose invisible essence will remain untouched by the effects of time.

A subtle blend of past, present, and future unfolds under the artist's masterful hand, never far removed from the milieu that witnessed his beginnings. For the energy of graffiti remains present on each canvas he covers from end to end, in an "all-over" style that implicitly suggests his gesture extends far beyond the confines of the frame. This open and expansive gesture is intended as a freedom of interpretation, allowing the viewer to imagine a scene and step outside the confines of mere observation.

The constant emotional atmospheres that surround the artist daily are superimposed on the canvas, taking the form of an accumulation of materials and colors that he sees as the strata that compose him. In his quest for balance, Franck Noto enters into a dialogue with the other through his works, where each gesture, each line, each color is a response, an answer to an unspoken question, a translation of the unspeakable that allows the primal purity of energy to express itself in its rawest form.

Watching Franck Noto paint is to see a man lower his guard and accept being invaded and guided by an infinite number of feelings, necessary to his creative process.

Ultimately, it's a story of time passing and erasing, but not deleting.