Neither completely abstract nor truly representative, Gérard Traquandi’s work is a constant paradox caught between the two realities of painting and actual existence. Fascinated by Cézanne and Monet and an enthusiastic admirer of Rothko, he has rethought Action Painting and investigated representation, keeping his distance from faithful. Gérard Traquandi uses motifs that may either be a picture from his memory or a reinterpretation of the image previously provided by art history : plantlike or mineral forms, mountains or clouds, prints of fruit or waterlilies. From baroque scrolls to arabesques, his strange painted volutes draw the gaze into their meandering patterns.
