Gilbert Erouart

Archives 2012

“SUSTAINED HESITATIONS”

I’m not what is called a “fusion artist”. My technique and medium -oil on canvas- are unashamedly traditional. This said, I believe something worthy of the name of fusion takes place when the spectator, by him- or herself and for his or her own benefit, lets the work achieve an inner resonance. But such moments are rare. Af- ter all, my paintings, like all creative works, are nothing else than hesitations, in- complete, maybe even un-begun. The rest is up to the spectator, and it can take many forms: indifference, wordless neutrality, vague interest, a will to reinterpret the painted image... As I don’t myself understand what happens on the canvas -as Richter said?: “if I understand, I have failed.”. I’ll let the critic speak for me. For instance Pascal Bonafoux:

“A painting never says anything, even when it seems to. Gilbert Erouart’s work, more than almost anyone’s, is filled with this silence. His world is peopled with presences of a singular, unavoidable intensity. You can ask them all the questions you want, you’ll never get a firm, certain answer in return, only more doubts, more head-spinning puzzlement.”