Live painting in a desanctified church
Concept :
Open his workshop.
Reveal his methods, the artist’s progression from a blank canvas to completion.
Showing oneself, laying oneself bare and letting yourself be observed. So much boldness that some creators would not have. Gérald Faway attempts it. He wants it more than anything. He takes pleasure in doing so. The other’s look is incredibly familiar to him; this impression of being constantly observed.
He finds a sense of security in it. Like man who feels except in everything that he knows. Maybe there is a necessity to exist in reality and not only on a wall, canvas, image or even a photograph. Being in the present moment, surrounded by those who want to see, unravelling the mysteries of the composition.
In a symbolic place, Gérald Faway offers himself. He gives everything, until the painting’s odour. Art has to be an exchange, otherwise it doesn’t live. The artist is jealous. Jealous of musicians, who, thanks to their sound penetrate the beings’ bowels and rise up towards the heart with a snap of the fingers.
This experience, at the moment of communion, therefore gives the artist the ability to aim correctly and quickly. The transmission is direct. Every brushstroke, addition of colour renders the desired effect. Retinas savour the contrasts, noses open up to the acrylic aromas, the ears tingle to the movement of the bristles on the stretched canvas.
To suit his whims and fantasies, Gérald Faway relocates his workshop and opens it to the public.
In April 2016, he did it in Charneux in the Chapelle de Monty or, in Walloon, « tchapele al Mizwète ».
At the 800th anniversary of Abbey of Val-Dieu, the artist organized to exhibit three large canvases (140 x 160 cm). In front of a hundred people, it is in this bucolic setting which is full of history that he chose to create them.
« We were not born men, we become them meeting the Others, facing their faces ». V. Triest.
« A kind of view behind masked faces… From the first glance, I am struck by the strong effect emitted by the colours, the relief and the form. It’s living, raw, and concrete. Working on materials surprises and calls out: they open sensibility, rendering subtle nuances. I perceive a movement, a dance of presences coming through the surfaces in different plans, levels and structures. A mixture of mystery and evidence, energy and fragility. Wanting to return to it, to vary the angles of view, to explore further beyond the first glance. Each canvas reveals an open door inviting the senses, imagination, travel and the return. Decidedly, Gérald Faway surprises and calls out through his single and strong piece of work. It delivers a subtle journey, sometimes nagging and terrible.
»
Sophie Gardier
