Clara Pozniakoff

There Is Something Mysterious And Unspeakable, Disconcerting About It. Both In The Paintings Of Mendrisse.
A Kind Of Reflection Deep Within Ourselves, In Regions Of Our Subconscious That We Are Alone In Knowing. To Be Able To Explore.

A Mystical Quest That Timeless Characters, Who Could Easily Come From Our Middle Ages, Pursue Endlessly. In Silence.

What Is Striking Is That The Paintings Of This Artist Are Strangely Silent. Each Of Them Depicts Two Or Three Characters With Enigmatic Faces, Their Lips Closed In Their Reverie.

Their Huge Eyes Eat The Canvas, But Never Look At Us. They Settle Elsewhere, Far Away From Us, Away From Home. Less Than This Look Which Is In No Way Intended For Us; Is Not Fully Rotated. Towards The Inside.

In Certain Ways, These Faces With Immense, Fixed Eyes Remind Us Of The Giant Statues That We Encounter In Certain Ancient Civilizations, Symbols Of Knowledge Reserved Only For The Initiates.



Mendrisse's Paintings Could Mark The Stages Of An Initiatory Quest, Where Where The Woman And The Child, The Teacher And The Student, The Book And The Writing Come Together, Landscapes That One Would Readily Call Biblical, Mount Of Olives Or Old Jerusalem.

We Are Immersed In An Unreal, Serene Atmosphere, Evoking In Certain Ways The Initiatory Novels Of Henri Gougaud. The Long Hands With Slender Fingers Are A Reminiscence Of The Icons Of Past Centuries.

Certain Paintings, On The Contrary, Present Fantastic Decorations, The Limit Of Surrealism, Characters In Long, Almost Monastic Robes Walk On Roads Suspended In The Void, In The Middle Of A City That Doesn't Look Like A City. Nothing Known: Symbol Of This Inner Journey On Unknown Paths, Beyond The Search For Something That Goes Beyond Us And Remains To Us. Never Secret.



This Constant Questioning, And The Probable Answers That Arise In Each Of Us, Find Their Expression In The Dark Areas And The Particular Light That Illuminates The Faces.

Mendrisse, For Whom Each Work Cannot Be Born Freely, Spontaneously, Without Being The Fruit Of A Long And Patient Maturation, Knew How To Find A Style And A Palette Specific To His Work. Communicate His Love Of His Neighbor, His Desire To Listen And Understand, To Reach The Mystery Of Life And To Understand Knowledge, In Silence And Meditation.

It Belongs To Each Of Us To Discover The Message Contained In All Of His Works, And Each Of Us Will Perhaps See Totally Different Things.



Clara Pozniakoff

October 2003