"The mission of art is not to copy nature but to express it. You are not a vile copyist, but a poet."
These words, which Balzac places in the mouth of his character, the old painting master Frenhofer, in the first pages of his famous short story The Unknown Masterpiece, could be the highlight of the sumptuous exhibition by Bernard Alligand, which we are pleased to present at the Pavillon des arts et du patrimoine de Châtenay-Malabry.
Back from his many trips to Iceland, it is as a poet that Bernard Alligand invites us to discover this land of contrasts, with endlessly renewed landscapes, shaped by fire and ice.
In each of the works exhibited, the work of the material, from mineral powders taken from Icelandic soil, the intensity of the light and the power of the movement give to see and feel the bubbling, the jolts and the eruptions of wild and flamboyant nature.
Back from Iceland, Bernard Alligand opens the doors to an elsewhere, magical and impetuous. It's up to us to venture there.
Editor: Georges SIFFREDI
Georges Siffredi, born in 1956 in Marseille, is a French politician. Member of the Republicans, former mayor of Châtenay-Malabry, he is president of the Hauts-de-Seine departmental council and vice-president of the Greater Paris metropolis.