#11 – Outremer – Vagues mélées
May-June 2015
Acrylic on canvas (1m x 1m)
What feels like a quiet landscape of waves or clouds in hues of blue and white, mixed with copper and pink shades, is like the dream of a storm having washed over an atoll, somewhere in the Pacific Ocean.
“Outremer – Vagues mêlées” can be translated as “Overseas – tangled waves”.
Below the final layers of waves is a bungalow-like structure in pink on a copper-coloured beach. I let this bungalow be washed over by the powerful waves of the Pacific Ocean. These waves rose from my memory, from a trip to French Polynesia in April 2007, particularly a few days on Rangiroa, part of the Tuamotu archipelago.
I was unable to render the bungalow from memory on the canvas to my satisfaction, so I let it be washed over by white and blue waves – just like in the story told by the owner of the small pension where I stayed with my friend Denis at the pass of Avatoru on Rangiroa – and where some of the recent storms had washed over the atoll and destroyed a number of bungalows. I had trouble falling asleep that night, my ears attentively following the mighty waves which were crashing on the coral belt a few meters away in the night. It was humbling and magnificent at once.
On the next day, we crossed the immense atoll by boat to access the wonderful Lagon Bleu (“Blue Lagoon”), and explored some strips of sand shining pink in the sunshine. The pink colour of Les Sables Roses (“the Pink Sands”) comes from the tiny bits of coral reduced to specks of sand by the wind. It’s a rarity, a true beauty.
I painted the final layer of this canvas mostly with my fingers. It felt the most natural to render the tactile sensation of grains of sand on a wet beach. And it worked beautifully well with the Golden Acrylic heavy body paint called “Iridescent Copper Light (Coarse)”. Painting with my fingers was also a wonderful discovery of that essential tool that my bare hands have become while painting in the past months.
I was on Rangiroa 8 years ago on my birthday. I gave this painting to my friend Ivona on her own birthday in July 2015. When I saw it at her place last month, I could not help it: I ran my fingers lightly on the surface of the painting and these memories started to come back to my consciousness. I am happy to remember these so clearly today.
My painting has found a good home.
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