The Angel of the Odd

January 20 to February 27, 2016

recent works

drawings, paintings: Georges BRU - Jean-Marie CARTEREAU - Evelyn GERBAUD - Bernard LE NEN - Denis POUPPEVILLE - Victor SOREN

sculptures: Pascale PROFFIT

The beautiful is always bizarre, wrote Baudelaire in Aesthetic Curiosities. Bizarre? Baudelaire came across it while translating one of the Edgar Allan Poe’s most extravagant stories: «The Angel of the Odd». There, an unpredictable and grotesque appearance haunts the narrator. So, the Angel of the Odd comes to visit us as an unexpected and strange encounter... And we disengage ourselves from the rigidity of our habits. Common sense is caugth off guard and the consciousness penetrates within the unexplored realms of imagination.

Terrifying, ferocious, disturbing, incongruous, grotesque, ironic, cheerful sometimes... the Angel of the Odd has a thousand faces. However, bizarre is not necessarily beautiful. Baudelaire writes: «I say that (the beauty) still contains some unwanted oddity, unconscious, and that it is this oddity that makes it particularly beautiful.» The artists we présent are neither intentionally nor artificially bizarre, but their works are singularly beautiful... All are deeply inhabited by the ambivalence gap and between-the-two of all worlds where prevail forces of the unconscious. Beyond the diversity of their expressions, they end up in this place.

  In Jean-Marie CARTEREAU’s drawings, life and death, organic, mineral, earth and sky are not opposed, nor do they not complete one each other, but they are impregnated in the slow maceration of metamorphoses as in his so familiar mangrove landscapes. J-M Cartereau presents drawings of its new series: «Ailes, éther et limbes» (Wings, ether and limbo). The angel appears between flight and drop.

Similarly,Evelyn GERBAUD’s paintings, drawings, monotypes, ink washes, show some ambiguous femininities in constant metamorphosis. Between tenderness and devourer’s bite, deep and elusive shadows emerge fleeting like childhood’s desires or fears, while the black shadows fade in the remoteness of all greys…

Childhood presence also with Victor SOREN,but darkly drawn with charcoal and black chalk. His drawings relived as his unfulfilled childhood’s obsession, dreams and nightmares. «The green paradise of childhood loves» is irremediably invaded with a silent pain, as an echoing the blackness of the great Austrian artist Alfred Kubin (1877-1959).

The Bernard LE NEN’s extravagant creatures are the archetype of ambivalence. All life forms are entangled. Animal, vegetable and organic draw the blazon of disturbing magical deities, in which we might see Figures related to a Voodoo cult. This magic dwells in the depths of our unconscious. Between Jerome Bosch and Arcimboldo, these Figures captivate and invite us to take part in mysterious rituals to ward off our anxieties.

Ambivalence again and again in Denis POUPPEVILLE’ works, mingling unusual and grotesque characters, half-man half-beast, in a truculent masquerade. Denis Poupeville is in line with the tradition of Flemish expressionists, James Ensor, Permeke... His drawings combines inks, watercolour, gouache at the discretion of pen or brush. Daumier is not far: humour and sarcasm lead the ball in an exhilarating jubilant atmosphere.

Georges BRU defies definition, so much singular is his work (on permanent display at the gallery). Inventor of unprecedented drawing processes, he reveals and gives a semblance of life to his improbable «Characters». They stay, as in lack of existence, dimmed in the greys of «Landscapes» which are as indeterminate as themselves. Everything remains on the margins of a blurred reality within the drawing’s imaginary truth.

With Pascale PROFFIT, the sculptor of this exhibition, oddity is poetic fantasy. Her characters, extravagant and improbable creatures, impose their amazed presence. These joyous gargoyles don’t have other logic than that of dreams. Their subtle and enigmatic humour defies reason and destabilizes the ordinary common sense’s ponderousness. They are as zest appetizer that gives us to tastily think on the meaning or meaninglessness of existence.

 BIOGRAPHIES

 Georges BRU is a draftsman and painter born June 2, 1933 in Fumel in the Lot-et-Garonne (France). He was professor of drawing at the School of Fine Arts of Toulon. Lives and works in Toulon.

Exhibitions: Galerie Chave, Vence. - Musée Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi, 2000 - Georges Bru, Galerie Sordini, Marseille, 2005 - Galerie d’Ys, Brussels, 2007 - Villa Tamaris Art Center, La Seyne-sur-Mer, 2008 - Georges Bru, galerie Lefor-Openo, Paris, 2012. Galerie ART aujourd’hui, Paris, 2014 (The Drawing or probity of art). His Works are permanently displayed at the gallery since 2014.

Public collections: Museum of Fine Arts, Bordeaux -
Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon - Cantini Museum, Marseille.

  Jean-Marie CARTEREAU

Born September 3, 1961 in Algeria, lives and works in Toulon. In 1983, a scholarship allows him to do an internship at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, a decisive step towards the future direction of its plastic approach with the work on the living and the artificial. Exhibits regularly in France: Marseille, Biarritz, Montauban (Ingres Museum), Paris, and abroad: the Netherlands, Quebec, Germany, Portugal, Belgium (Linéart, Ghent). Present in Private and Public collections (Marseille - Toulon - Aix en Provence - La Seyne / Mer - Mie, Japan - Red Fox Press, Ireland).

Works in permanence at Galerie ART aujourd’hui since 2014
(exhibition «Drawing or probity of art»)

 Evelyn GERBAUD

Painter, engraver, lithographer, born in Paris in 1950. Studies at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. Member of the Committee of the Salon de Mai. In 1975 she creates with Patrick Devreux, Atelier and Editions of St Christol de Rodieres, specialized in the art of lithography as engraving. Collaborator of the magazine «Passage d’encres« and editions «Voix d’encre».

Evelyn Gerbaud exhibits since the 70s.Many personal exhibitions in France (including Paris) and abroad (Switzerland, Sweden, Holland, Japan, Belgium), also participating in numerous group exhibitions and Fairs: Salon de Mai, Salon des Réalités Nouvelles in Paris, Salon de Marne la Vallée , International Art Junction Nice, Artenîmes, Salon d’Angers …

 Bernard LE NEN

Born in 1954 in Bizerte in Tunisia. Lives and works in the Gard. (South of France)

Recent solo exhibitions: 2013: Galerie ART aujourd’hui, Paris - 2014: Guest of honor «Mythimages« Marciac (32) - 2015: Galerie La Rage, Lyon (69)

Collections: - Ceres Franco, Lagrasse. - Museum of Naïve art Anatole Jakovsky, Nice ...

In permanence Galerie ART aujourd’hui.

Bernard LE NEN by himself:

I could tell you that I was born some time ago, not long after the war, in another country by sea side. What I experienced at the end of the land, here and there, in towns, a little, and often in the countryside. I have been in school, I learned to read, write, count and draw in the margins. I could also tell you that I have done a lot of jobs, not well paid, but jobs that often hurt hands. I took my time anyway for something other than work, for love, friends, children. I could also tell you that I almost died several times. At least three. The last one was a short time ago.

That for now, it’s all right. Sometimes I do the cooking, cleaning. I could tell you, finally that I may often paint and spread colours to create images... It is no-secret might you reply... and you would be right... So keeping quiet? Why not?

 Denis POUPPEVILLE

Born in 1947 in Le Havre. Studies in the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, in Paris and then worked as a press illustrator (Le Fou parle, L’Express, Le Monde, Le Magazine Littéraire). Has also taught at the Faculty of Arts of Amiens and at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris.

Since 1980, he had numerous exhibitions in France (Galerie Béatrice Soulié, Paris, Auberive Abbey etc.) and abroad (Brussels Art Exhibition, Lausanne, Geneva, Tokyo etc.) Several retrospectives were devoted to him as: 2011, Fort Condé.

Denis Pouppeville also illustrated numerous literary texts: Jules Renard, Jean Paulhan, Louis Calaferte, Gilbert Lascault, Alfred Jarry, Lionel Bourg, Leon Bloy, (editions Fata Morgana).

 Victor SOREN

Born in 1967, spent his childhood in Le Pouliguen (Bretagne). After a mediocre schooling, he entered the Fine art school in Nantes for only a few months. Then he locks himself in an old house in Nantes loaned from his grandmother. Every night, he was drawing with a great exaltation. He did not frequent the local art scene and never shews his drawings. After a few years in Bretagne, he moved to Paris where he met Louis Pons’s work. The gallery Béatrice Soulié then organized his first exhibition. He meets ART aujourd’hui gallery in 2015.

 2009 and 2011: Personal exhibition, Gallery Beatrice Soulié, Paris

2010: Group exhibition «Around Kubin» at the Abbey of Auberive

2011: Group exhibition «Le Salon des Refusés» galerie Béatrice Soulié, Paris.

2013 - 2015: Outsider Art Fair Paris.

 Pascale PROFFIT

 Born in 1951 in Paris, graduated from ENSAD ( National School of Decorative arts) in 1975 (interior architecture).

Works in sculptor A. MINOT’s workshop in Sèvres.

Collaborates and participates from 1974 to 1980 to commands 1%: monumental sculptures and ceramic bas-reliefs, frescos and polyurethane paintings.

Pascale PROFFIT exhibits since 1981.

In permanence, Gallerie ART aujourd’hui –

since the exhibition Inneffables presences June-July, 2013.