French painter Thierry de Gorostarzu's canvases are bathed in light and a poetic invitation to reminisce
Thierry De Gorostarzu evokes art: the allure of his personality, his hairstyle, along with a certain dreamy gaze. In childhood, Thierry dreamt of being a painter. “I must have been eight or nine years old when I discovered painting and sculpture through Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, without really knowing their life, let alone the period of the Renaissance. During a visit to the museum of the orangery where I accompanied my parents, I discovered the virtuosic touch of a Fragonnard, as well as the Watteau Gille who always sent me the image of the candid face to the world. I then had the intimate and unshakeable conviction that this was the only thing I could consider doing in this life". Only it took a little more time than expected: Thierry had to wait until I was 40 to get started!
For Thierry De Gorostarzu, the path to painting was a long personal quest. “I didn't start in earnest until 2000. Before that I worked in finance and refused to paint. I wanted to devote myself fully to it. In my opinion, we are not born a painter, we become one. Of course, you have to have predispositions, but this potential must then be highlighted by diligent work”.
Thierry quickly sold his first paintings and in 2004, he was registered with the Maison des Artistes. His paintings challenge and arouse strong emotions. “I work with quick, abstract touches. I like the idea of a work that breaks down as we get closer".
It was by following the advice of his colleagues that he also became an Air Painter in 2008. “As a teenager, I wanted to become a pilot. I even took some gliding lessons. Also, I knew a bit about the military world through my father, who was a general in the infantry. On an air base, I like to soak up the moods, the colours. A fighter plane in a hangar looks like a magnificent Formula to me. It is a true work of art, exuding a tremendous amount of power!"
“Another aspect that is very present in my painting is the theatrical dimension. Child and adolescent, I was very close to my uncle who was an actor. Discovering theatre at a very young age played an essential role in my life. The idea of theatrical illusion, the incarnation of a text, and finally a thousand things connected with the theatre have structured and constructed my imagination. It is not surprising that when I discovered Venice in 2015, with these sets and its colonnades, I found again the sensations experienced previously in the scenes. I see in them characters who emerge or leave the scene, the views on the sea, through the windows of the houses, when the gaze is lost on the horizon without anyone coming to disrupt the scene, bring me back to my contemplative childhood … The more I paint, the more my soul turns back on my past."
Thierry's collaboration with Galerie Cheriff Tabet in Beruit is the fruit of a completely fortuitous encounter: whilst strolling one day in the rue de Seine, the gallery owner noticed a painting in a window and fell, by chance or providence, on the artist, who was hanging up his paintings for the opening the next day. There have been other happy meetings in Thierry de Gorostarzu’s career. “From the moment I attended the workshop in 2000, people have opened doors for me. A very discreet lady once bought two paintings from him and turned out to be Teresa Cremisi, patron of the Gallimard Flammarion group. A friendship developed and the publisher invited Thierry to her home in Italy, allowing the artist to set up her easel under the light of the transalpine sun.
Thierry de Gorostarzu painted on the Amalfi Coast a cloister and its row of colonnades revealing a composition with obvious pictorial theatricality. This scenic aspect is reflected in his other canvases, particularly in those depicting Venice, since with its emphatic decorations the Serenissima is a veritable giant theatre stage. It is therefore not surprising that when he discovered the city in 2015, the painter once again experienced the sensations he had once experienced behind the scenes when he accompanied his uncle, an actor: “My imagination was surely conditioned by theatrical illusion. "Frozen scenes, the impression of a suspended story, Thierry de Gorostarzu's canvases have an undeniable cinematographic point of view ... "If we could have a second life, I think I would be a director".
Light literally bathes all of Thierry's paintings. “I love the dazzling side of the sun; surely flashes of my childhood when I went to the southwest of France", he explains. "I also think of Camus's novel, La Chute, and that crucial moment when the star is at its zenith and tragedy takes place". Finally, there is water, another ubiquitous element that also implicitly refers to the holidays spent as a child by the ocean. Like this bright interior open to the sea in the Arcachon basin. "My cousins' house, a place that has always moved and sensitised me." It is through these representations of warm atmospheres and the feeling of empathy they give the viewer that the artist awakens our common memories, which ultimately allow us to make the painting our own. "What interests me most of all is being able to create this affinity with the place in order to gently bring back memories."
