Untitled

Original title: Sans titre

Vertical composition. Here, the planes stack and overlap without room to breathe; blocks of yellow ochre, purple and red interlock like tiles or walls in perspective. The fine black lines, drawn as if in ink, serve as a framework and guide the eye from top to bottom. The light yellow-green block at the bottom centre is the anchor point, and the vivid purple at the top right acts as a counterpoint. The palette is warm and saturated: vermilion red, orange, mustard yellow, plum purple, with a few touches of acid green (bottom centre, top right) that awaken the whole. Purple plays the role of complementary to yellow and gives depth. One senses an end-of-day light, very Mediterranean or African. As for technique, the surface is heavily worked: scraped, sanded or plastered impastos, with the look of roughcast, earth or stone; translucent glazes beneath the thick layers, visible in the purples and reds; vertical drips on the right bring movement, as do the stencilled or imprinted motifs (a scattering of orange dots on the right, rows of dark dots at bottom left and top right). This canvas is a matter-driven abstraction with allusions to architecture (façades, roofs, earthen walls) and to textile (patchwork, pagne). Its strength remains the chromatic intensity, the richness of the surfaces, the energy of the composition, the graphic details, which give it a very personal signature.