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Bernard Gast is a french contemporary artist, also poet, philosopher and psychoanalyst.. His creation uses Cinema to come back to the spirit of Painting and give birth to "Painting-with-Cinema"...

Bernard Gast, 2014

Sommaire

1 Biography

2 Works

3 Awards

4 Medias : press, radios, web, televisions

5 Main exhibitions

6 Public & Private collections

7 Notes and references 8 External links

Biography

His life starts with a childhood disrupted by war and exile... He spends a part of his childhood in La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime – France).

After studying Law in Poitiers University (from 1974 to 1977), he studies Art History in Bordeaux III University from 1977 to 1979 and Plastic Arts in  Paris VIII University from 1987 to 1990.

Bernard Gast also holds a Master 2 (D.E.A.) in Philosophy (Psychoanalysis and Aesthetics).

His body of work is in connection with Cinema. Three medias are his main tools : drawing (with the pseudonym of KOLéOM), photography and video (videos are called "Sensitive rooms").

His language, especially, the works made with photograms from 35mm films, conveys what the artist himself names "Painting-with-Cinema" since freeing himself from its matter, his work keeps mirroring the whole body of works of Painting. "I paint with pictures of Cinema".  

Bernard Gast’s first "Cinema pictures" date from 1995-1996. But they actually came to their full force with the birth of the XXIst century. As from the years 2000, he produces his three Aesthetic concepts of Galerie Intime (Inmost Gallery), Tout ça, c'est du cinéma ! (All this is pictures !) and Peindre-avec-le-Cinéma (Paint-with-Cinema).

Works

Taking note that the rise of Photography and Cinema sets painting in the shade as a means of apprehending the world, Bernard Gast starts in the 1990’s a deep thought process over the status of painting in our XXIst century’s society. Instead of opposing the two forms, he seeks a symbiosis where 'the mother' (Painting) appropriates and explores the reality that 'her children' (Photo-Cinema) induce. Starting from the 35mm photograms that he "picturalizes", he compels them in relocating Painting at the core of the artistic process.

Intimate Projection

In 2002, following a crucial and founding event, Bernard Gast gives birth to Galerie intime (Intimate Gallery or Intimate Projection) (...) Galerie intime is the eclectic medium of my multiform work. Galerie intime is actually in the center of myself and of my work. My whole work and my whole life is Galerie intime. Work of art and (work) of life : Galerie intime is one. (...) As a nomadic concept, Galerie intime becomes an experience of space and ... Of an especial state of consciousness urging the unconscious to answer to the immersion in the projections from the world (...) Galerie intime is a portable gallery that I activate at will (...)

All This is Cinema (Pictures) !

From this movie still (snip of 35 mm film), from this piece of our imaginary world, the artist defines film as "la pellicule-peau du Cinéma du monde" (the sensitive skin of the world’s Cinema), he rephrases his work as Cezanne did with Provence’s landscapes.Through his proceeding, "the skin allows the perception of the outside, as the film-skin allows the vision of the society" .

Painting with 35 mm stills from Cinema... To figure the spirit of Painting

His main approach "Painting-with-Cinema" aims for a resurgence of Painting through Cinema. Each work includes a poem that may be read and listened to in French and in English with a QR code.

His work displays a large formal variety : all the ideas and historical forms of Painting or art figure in his visuals (Abstract, Cinetic, New Figuration, Pop Art, Surrealism, Photojournalism, Poetic Realism, Cinema Nouvelle Vague, etc).

Using all of painting’s techniques, Bernard Gast’s work brings forth a proteinic Painting. He refuses moreover to choose between abstraction and representation, between Painting and Photography, between image and text, between Painting and Installation. From engraving to projection, he emancipates of historical trends while empowering himself to use them all.

On one hand, at the time of globalization, the Cinema alone allows the creation of a planet-sized collective imaginary world. The artist locates himself in the core of this imaginary culture in order to transfigure it : he lays out this "reality" of Cinema – on a collective mode – in inmost pictures, of such intimacy that they grow into universality.

On the other, by the richness of his work and his pictorial approach, Bernard Gast answers to the crucial interrogation of XXst century’s art : what is there to figure through Painting ? En tous cas, plutôt sa variété que son degré zéro… By using a strip of 35mm film as his blank canvas, he replaces in a modernity the triumph of the Mother-Painting over the Children-Photo&Cinema.

As a paradox, freeing himself from the material painting and creating with parts of Cinema's movies as "raw materials", the artist sends back to Painting. This allows him to name his approach Peinture-avec-le-Cinema (Painting-with-Cinema).

It is probably what made Olivier Michelon* say : The works of Bernard Gast are far more pictorial than paintings !

• Olivier Michelon was Curator in Art Centre Georges Pompidou for the exhibition Pictures movement (art, Cinema)

Awards

• C.N.R.S. [1]