blocks of colour that appear on the point of burying everything. “I don’t always trust myself. When a painting resolves too easily, it is not necessarily a positive sign. Similarly, if an idea is too preconceived, the painting process will be limited. Spontaneity and loss of control are important. The creative process is a continual struggle between order and rebellion. So I come back to the canvas, again and again. It’s never over”, Simon confides. When a gallery recently asked him for a particular painting for an exhibition, Simon had already painted over it. “It still exists, but it’s buried under something else.” When you look closely at his paintings, you see that they are either burying or, conversely, attempting to reveal something. Sometimes, by chance, the “marks” emerging from the solid blocks of colour – or plains of white – seemingly concealing another adventure happening below the surface. “White is a parched desert that covers and buries. What is below is also important. There’s the present, which is what you can see, and the past, which you can’t see any more but is still there.” Following the line. The line of life? Fragile and blurred, like a tangled ball of wool. Solitary and winding, like a storm that quenches the thirst of the parched earth and perhaps brings to the surface bones from the bloodied past of his country. Perhaps like the breath of redemption in Ezequiel’s vision, a parable Simon likes to quote. Before we leave, Simon lays out on the ground his most recent series of drawings in charcoal and acrylic. Once again, black lines emerge, suggesting a landscape, a ship or perhaps even a bird, triggering a spontaneous feeling, which is almost naïve like a childlike vision. Simon’s studio, meticulously tidy, shows vestiges of the hand-to-hand combat between the painter and his paintings. L’atelier de Simon, minutieusement ordonné, garde les traces du corps-à-corps entre le peintre et ses tableaux.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NjMzMjI=