Gérard Esquerre

"A work of art, even created quickly, is always the result of a long journey"

Biography

Born in Bordeaux, my secondary studies took place at the Lycée then at the École normale de Tours (Indre et Loire).

Admitted to the Lycée Claude Bernard in Paris, I studied plastic arts and obtained the Capes in 1969. I then worked as a plastic arts teacher in Seine-Maritime.

In 1977, I became head of visual arts at the Regional Center for Educational Documentation in Rouen.

In 1982, I was appointed Artistic Advisor in Plastic Arts at the Ministry of Culture (DRAC de Haute Normandie).

In 2000, I left Haute-Normandie for the PACA region and settled in Vence (Alpes-Maritimes) where I live and work today.

In 2015 I created the Artothèque de Vence.

Like improvisation in jazz, art is a spring for me after a long reflection.

At the same time painter, sculptor, graphic designer, photographer ... in a word plastic artist in every sense of the term, I like to work with all the techniques and all the materials that I meet.

Man, his life and his environment are at the center of my inspiration.

I refute the old quarrel - incidentally outdated - figurative and abstraction. You can see in my work both figurative works and so-called abstract compositions, the real meaning of each work being most often located at the confluence of these two major trends. Thus such painting, such sculpture which seems abstract at first sight could well have been inspired by perfectly concrete elements which the eye or the imagination of the spectator will end up guessing. Conversely, a work whose meaning is apparently immediately legible can hide richer and more complex intentions.

For me, it is the gap between reality and its representation that creates the work of art. The technical means are put at the service of this alchemy.