Ode Bertrand

Bilingual edition: French and English

Ode Bertrand is the painter of lines. All kinds of lines: thin, straight, horizontal, vertical, oblique, juxtaposed, crossed. Always black, too, and meticulously drawn with perfect precision on a white surface. His paintings are painted, even though his lines are created with a tool other than a brush: a drawing pen. However, this is not drawing, even though the technique and appearance of these works are directly related to it. What could be more natural than Ode Bertrand devoting part of her creative activity to working on paper? This is the reason for this book, introduced by a text by Vincent Baby and supplemented by an interview with the artist by Evelyne de Montaudoüin: to show her work on paper for the first time in a comprehensive way. We see the different techniques used by Ode Bertrand, from acrylic paint to graphite, including collage, her use of lines of varying thickness that intersect or overlap or run continuously, her emphasis on the motif arranged on the sheet or, conversely, her networks that occupy the entire surface. We will also discover how she has evolved since her beginnings in 1973 in the world of informal art to the systematic and ever-renewed exploration of geometric lines. And always with the same pleasure. Serge Lemoine