Nicolas Chardon

Overview

Nicolas Chardon's painting introduces reality and life into Suprematist abstract motifs, from which he humorously emancipates himself through the medium. Here, no canvas, but trivial fabrics (madras, gingham), originally squared and straight, undergo the deformations of being nailed to the stretchers. The abstract squares then painted take their distorted place.

The "Systèmes" exhibition is a fairly open and general presentation of Nicolas Chardon's work. In the spirit of a glossary, the artist unveils works from several emblematic series of his paintings, past and present.

Systems, notes / Nicolas Chardon

In practical terms, a paint "system" refers to all the layers of paint required to cover and protect a given surface.

Conceptually, a "system" is an abstract whole whose elements are coordinated by a theory.

I propose to bring these 2 "systems" together, to reread the history of painting in the light of these meanings, and to draw some conclusions for today.

The system was first primordial for the pioneers of abstraction, then programmatic for the generation of the 60s, and finally, as far as I'm concerned, attached to the "fabrics" of painting.

It is the material fabrication of the painting (stretching a canvas on a stretcher) that guides the painter and produces radically pictorial figures, which can only exist there - on the surface of the painting - and under these conditions.

I'm one of those painters who make painting, because painting is nothing other than a system of systems.