Quiétude

The astonishment is great in the face of the diversity that exists. works by Bernard Rebatet. From seascapes and landscapes to crowds wandering on the beaches or elsewhere, the path traveled by the artist always brings him back to the origins, that of painting as well as that of nature from which he came. ; he comes. Bernard Rebatet is a patient and observant flân; a door, a market, a bus, children playing attract his attention to the point of, little by little, little, focus on a tree or a flower. And he stays there starting a long series of the same object, as if to exhaust his subject, perhaps to have at the heart of things, like a curious child, the small plots of the world. The work resonates like an expansion of the line, moving towards a slightly nostalgic expression, where we always feel the pleasure of drawing and color developing. What is striking is the voluntary indecision between nature and objects, between figurative tradition and a taste for pictorial matter alone, where imposes itself on everything suddenly, in a desolate landscape, an empty chair or an abandoned bicycle. The idea of solitude and everywhere even in the crowd. Edward Hopper is not so far away, which suddenly gives a gravity to the scene. à the modesty of the subjects.

Throughout the works, we moved gradually from a fairly broad plan to a larger one. a close-up, of a colorful variation of the dominant and intense red of the poppy or the dark green of the bamboo. So what do these two motifs tell us about the artist's commitment to nature, to life between violence and passion against a backdrop of landscapes, from the Drôme to the south? the Reunion? the poppy embodies “fragile ardor”, we know it to be associated with nature. the goddess Demeter, that of fertility, nourishing mother having all power over the cycles of nature. As for bamboo, it embodies friendship. and joy. From robustness to flexibility, it represents righteousness. The memory of a region for everyone, the memory of the artist. Certainly, poppies and bamboos mark a break which also translates, in the latest works in a modified format, into a return to the past. the multitude, through the calm anonymity rediscovered; in marines, by the search for the new figure which makes you want to wait for the sequel...