Gilles Rieu

Gilles Rieu was born in 1953 in South West of France. He is a former educator. But one day it occurred to him that nothing was more important for himself than devote his life and energy entirely to the art of painting.
Gilles is very talkative. He has got so many things to say. He is fond of words that, quite naturally, writing soon became the main medium for him to express himself through his paintings.
He militates in favor of a come-back to a genuine emotion throughout which art shows by itself its deep meanings such as remembrance duty, expression of memory, in a word: a mirror of soul...
Thanks to the mere enjoyment he hears to the physical contact with raw materials, he collects his pigments himself in Provence, and mixes different materials with colors in the same way as a cook would prepare and excellent "Pot au feu".
Day after day he works on his canvas again and again, in order to give it the sort of patina one can find on the leather cover of very ancient books. So just like them his pieces of work carry written messages.
His paintings originate from any sort of scrap written material such as newspapers, printed matters, letters, school copy - books, photos, drawings, rough sketches or any documents. Then a long stream of flowing and little calligraphies cross the word - crowded canvas: automatic writing carried on a brainwave.
Gilles Rieu has adapted Shitro's own statement : "An artist's brush helps to make things emerge out of chaos". This is how he is one of these pioneers who expresses through a straight motion their innermost feelings as well as their spirituality.

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