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RETURN FROM ICELAND

MATERIALS AND CREATIONS

 

SINCE HIS VISIT TO THE LASCAUX CAVES IN THE 80S - A REAL ARTISTIC SHOCK - BERNARD ALLIGAND HAS STRIVED TO FIX THE MEMORY OF THE COUNTRIES HE CROSSED AND THE LANDS HE Tread.

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Also, wherever he is, he does not fail to take, meticulously and with discernment, both on the surface and in depth, a little of this earth and the multiple materials that compose it, to reintegrate it into his works. , making it revive and exist in another dimension, that of canvas or paper. Highlighting the material, in its smallest crevices and detours, sublimating it in some way, this is the path that the artist has traced for himself over the past thirty years. 

Film "ECHOS" de Axel Clévenot sur le travail de Bernard Alligand sur l'Islande

THE WORK OF BERNARD ALLIGAND, OF AN Astonishing UNITY, has not ceased to evolve and renew itself, to deepen, since the beginning of his career at the beginning of the 80s. Neither figurative nor abstract, transcending borders of creation, Bernard Alligand is in search of his own expression with the fierce desire to find a balance between shapes and textures. Employing mixed techniques very early on in his compositions, he draws his inspiration from the places he crosses or rather that he excavates with patience and tenacity, like an archaeologist. His "harvests", as he calls them, of minerals and plants, nourish his works, and through a strange alchemy, are reborn on the canvas in a new space, where the material is in a way transcended by the hand of the artist. .

Extract from the Retour d'Islande catalog, text by Pascal Fulacher.

CANVAS

ORIGINALS ON PAPER

Technique Mixte. Sands, volcanic earth, oxidation, fragments of schist, on Velin BFK Rives paper 250 g - F. from 20 x 20, 30 x 30 cm to 40 x 40 cm

AQUAGRAVURES

Technique Mixte.Reconstituted rag paper. 2 versions: white or with black sand highlights F. 52.5 x 52.5 cm

ICELANDIC WALKS

Technique Mixte.Sand, volcanic earth, acrylic, on corrugated cardboard mounted on canvas F. 40 x 40 cm

ICELAND WALKS

THE MANY VOYAGES HE TAKEN IN ICELAND AND THE RESULTING WORKS, some of which are still in progress, mark a turning point in the art of Bernard Alligand. Land of volcanoes and glaciers, near Greenland, Iceland is a land full of contrasts with green pastures and multicolored houses. Here is the landscape that Bernard Alligand discovers with amazement from his first stay, a landscape at the antipodes of the one he had just left (Morocco, made of the sun shining on the sands of the desert), a landscape of ice and fire, of snow, water and greenery where black, red, green and white dominate, colors that Bernard Alligand will immediately use in all their violence, as the basis of his new creations. This is how Bernard Alligand produced a series thematic of 18 square paintings of 40 centimeters side with corrugated cardboard background reminiscent of corrugated iron houses and to pose, on this one, the colors as they appeared to him, not only of the houses but also those of the ground , water, sand and green nature, with white paint strokes and black spots to indicate that in this country, glaciers and volcanoes are one. Tables that we could just as well qualify as volcanic scriptures because the colored matter, present in them, comes from Icelandic soil. Once completed, this set was called Icelandic Walks by their walk-like path through the territory to show both its variety and unity. Iceland is therefore at the origin of the change of chromatic register that we see in the paintings of Bernard Alligand from 2010 with dominations of green, black and red which until then did not exist. And for good reason. The large aerial frescoes, clear and luminous, have succeeded the dark colors of the earth expelled from its depths.

Extract from the Retrospective catalog at the Grand Théâtre d'Angers, text by Jean-Pierre Geay (2012)

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