| A highly developed sense of observation, a fanatical
concern for detail and an extreme precision all constitute the basic ingredients
of Yves Palliès' art. None of this would exist without the artist's
exceptional dexterity as, and there's no doubt about it, the man has talent.
Modest and discrete he has succeeded in climbing the ladder to international
notoriety. Yves Palliès's works are first and foremost skilfully
orchestrated stagecraft involving all types of objects, a mixture of realism
and mystery, humour and illusion, or even allusion. Constantly driven by
an intense love for a job well-done, Yves Palliès, using his own
language and meticulously refined stroke of the brush, methodical to the
very edges of the canvas, deals with objects and the world in his own, unwavering,
objective reality without caving in before the fervour of emotion or the
persistence of his imagination. Originally from the city of Nantes, Palliès was born in 1952. Son of a portrait painter and decorator, grandson of an Argentine guitarist at the Paris Opera, he spent three years at Nantes Beaux Arts art school. Palliès' first trompe-l'œil exhibition was held in 1992, in Nantes, with Myrtille CADIOU, the widow of the trompe-l'œil maestro " Henri CADIOU" as patron. How is his technique innovative in an art form which seems to be such a close re-transcription of reality ? Thanks to its conformity. Trompe - l'œil painting is nothing more than an appearance - a technique which is not an end in itself but rather an extremely elaborate means of succeeding in portraying a reality which is heightened to such an extent that it naturally penetrates the imaginary. Yves Palliès' art also contains a degree of illusionism : when the canvas displays the perfect illusion of a three dimensional space and conveys such a sentiment of truth that the spectator wants to tug on the end of a ball of string which is cunningly unravelled or smooth over a piece of paper which is coming unstuck or swat a fly negligently placed in a corner. Obviously, if this representational perfection requires a virtuosity of execution which is more or less unique in pictorial art, it also implies a large part of extravagant inspiration. But let's not be fooled : artisans of this art form have to possess a strong taste for paradox. And on this level, Yves Palliès is unbeatable. A novelty in terms of inspiration, which the artist expresses by gathering together the most ill-assorted objects which are then carefully arranged. Palliès' technique no longer requires the non figurative to reveal the hidden side of objects and the secrets of his soul. We've all understood that Yves Palliès' source of inspiration, the mark of a undeniable nostalgia but which stops short of an all-out devotion to the past, namely derives from second-hand objects and treasures hidden away in lofts. With Palliès, a jumbled mess becomes a work of art and organised disorder becomes a form of surrealism. And one of the great merits of Yves Palliès' art is to offer us a glimpse of the other-worldliness of our everyday universe and to impose a vision filled with the mysteries of the world in which we live.
|