La Fiancée du Collectionneur. Gregory Forstner. Exhibition from 15 November to 3 January 2015 She was tall, she was blonde, she was the collector’s fiancée.
La Fiancée du Collectionneur. Gregory Forstner. Exhibition from 15 November to 3 January 2015 She was tall, she was blonde, she was the collector’s fiancée. I give her nourishing hips (besides buttocks, I like women’s hips), swimmer’s shoulders (I am a swimmer), Naples-yellow hair (I am blond), and a colonial helmet from the African bush (I was born in Cameroon). Might as well paint the girls one would like to sleep with. Stereotypes have stiff skin; their surface is gold-plated. The desirable girl is therefore blonde, full-figured, her breasts point firm, her lips are red and shine. Smoke slips through my fingers. I paint with sugar. I maintain a direct link with my childhood. I am there whenever I want. When I think of a cloud, I imagine it blue. In painting the mountains are always blue. The child on the beach draws the blue cloud. The sky is blue too, and the sea beneath it is blue likewise but deeper. In the middle it is “empty”: it is the white of the paper, which asks for nothing. It took me a while to paint landscapes. I have no problem with wind, sea, grass, cows, all that. When they arrive in the painting, they are there to set a scene. The Fall of Icarus is a good example. The subject has gone underwater; only the ridiculous feet and the ardent calves are visible, bottom right. Meanwhile, each detail of the landscape allows the dive. Art is compensatory. Painting does not seek to say anything. It is a moment. You have to pinch yourself to believe it! Seriously, painting is nothing other than pinching yourself to believe it. There is History and little history, but in truth it is always a sensation that slips away to renew itself elsewhere and otherwise. One hides behind the images of others in order to appear taller. The rest is conversation. Others must have fun; alone, one does not exist. Here, the sky is blue like its clouds, and in the wind the Fiancée pulls the Collector along. The object of the figure is its presence; its appearance is its effect. Do not look elsewhere. The child begins by drawing what seems essential to him, the arms, the legs, the head, and he marvels. I have grown up and I paint what I love: breasts, eyes, pool cues, arseholes and hips, scuba divers and then sometimes dogs – one must always paint the things one desires – or else the things one hates. I prefer to paint pretty girls. It happens that painting paints them ugly, but I paint them beautiful. Painting sometimes decides otherwise, because around a girl something always happens that one does not anticipate. In life it is the same. The woman has to complain a little for the picture to turn; she pouts, makes a face, and one gives in. Seeking the hostess’s air, one pierces the air of the painting in its background. By forcing stereotypes, the natural explodes. With repetition of the gesture, it goes on by itself. Gregory Forstner
