Un été sans fin // Pierre Boncompain
“I USE FALSE SYMMETRY, FALSE PERSPECTIVES, ALL CAREFULLY CONCEIVED AND ARRANGED.”
On Saturday 22 April we will open the solo exhibition 'Un été sans fin' at MPV Gallery in Oisterwijk.
You are very welcome to attend the opening on Saturday 22 April from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
THE HAPPY PAINTINGS BY PIERRE BONCOMPAIN
The French painter Pierre Boncompain (1938, FR) is a modest artist, who grew up lonely and gloomy in a literary family, and for whom painting is a way to find harmony within himself. Pierre wanted to be a writer as a child, just like his father. He was sent to a Jesuit college in Avignon and invented short stories; even wrote a novel (which was never published). As a little boy he was sent weekly postcards with pictures of paintings, which he colored as he thought Van Gogh's or Modigliani's colors were. And usually he managed to hit this well, except with Renoir (he colored his paintings very dark because of the 'noir' in the name). At less than ten years old, he proudly organized a first exhibition in his boarding room.
Pierre Boncompain studied from 1958 to 1961 at the École des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. Immediately after his studies, he was noticed in 1961 at the 'Salon de la jeune peinture' by the art critic Georges Besson, who introduced him in a (group) exhibition at the Parisian Galerie Guiot. From that moment on it went fast.
At first his paintings were dark and subdued. “Youth is gloomy. The color is only found with age. By making art one compensates for one's own shortcoming, a shortcoming. Painting was a way to find harmony in myself, even more, to conquer it. Thanks to painting I have learned to love the world, 'à aimer par le regard', to love it through the gaze.”
The work of Pierre Boncompain is often compared to the work of Matisse and Cézanne. He himself does not call these greats his example, but he does stand in the tradition of French painting of the twentieth century; by Bonnard, Cézanne, de Nabis, de Fauves, by Matisse and above all – though it is not visible – by Picasso. “I feel like a grandson of Braque, Matisse and Picasso.”
In his paintings Boncompain searches for beauty, happiness and harmony. He views his motives from above, from the air, free of gravity. One of the recurring motifs is the female nude, for which his wife Colette is the model. The women in his paintings always seem to be asleep. “Lying poses are less tiring. The relaxation allows the forms to unfold.” Although the paintings were made in Paris, the sunny scenes suggest that they were painted in Provence. Boncompain's work is always festive; it shows the joy of living with a Mediterranean vibrancy.
