Francois Barthelemy

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I make paintings using oils. Oils are extraordinary materials, thick and creamy and sensual. They take a long time to dry. They will last for a long time too. It carries meaning, because no matter what we do, how different and innovative we strive to be, ultimately we are part of the great mechanism that is life, and death, and in the end time will overtake us all. Yet I try to make contemporary paintings. Art of our own time, but timeless also.

I paint a lot of bodies, because I think our bodies express so much. But they are more than just exposed flesh. Paintings talk about what makes us humans; what it means to be, to love, to have fun, to endure, to move - the whole lot of human emotions that we all experience, and that make us alive. Ultimately, they are objects of contemplation; ways to understand ourselves and reach another level. I also paint people, places, things that surround us, because what surrounds us is part of us and we project our emotions on them and see things in them beyond their mere functionalities. In a way, by paintings them I make them sacred objects (or bodies, or faces, or places) and they become a link to this other place, this other level of understanding that make us humans and no beast.

I hope my paintings can stand on their own. I hope they draw viewers, silently, to explore what sort of feelings and emotions they get from them. And there is no simple answer - different people will experience wildly different feelings, and that is fine and that is good. Each of my work tries to express one tiny aspect of our humanity. "Virtual Reality" (see below), for instance, is about how we sometimes seem locked up in our own self-made universe and we stop communicating with each other and seeing and touching each other - a form of solitude among the multitude. There is sadness but there is also strength in retiring from the world and living one's own universe - very much, in fact, the life of an artist.