FRANÇOIS BARD
For Bard, the simplest of all subjects, be it a shoe, a leg, a torso, a foot, a dog or a face takes a tragic and magnificent dimension. He manages to translate all his intimate emotion into a two-dimensional art work; each painting is an endless exercise of composition, rhythm and struggle and the use of multiple layers of oil accentuates the feel and dynamic mood of all his paintings.
Francois Bard gives a part of himself in every canvas. The horizon-the vast limiting of human experience is a phenomenon that has fascinated Bard. The horizon draws a line between here and not-here, between day and night, good and evil, us and them.
Bard’s paintings can be described as ‘edgy.’ There is a dark, urban quality to his paintings that evoke both a sense of danger and of loneliness and alienation of modern, urban life. He achieves this not only through the darkness of coloration and much of his subject matter, but also by the isolation, even abstraction of his subjects. Bard not only favors the close-up, he often paints fragments: a man’s head, a woman’s legs, a man’s feet, or a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. His subjects are invariably shown waiting, alone, but waiting for what or for whom? He is also known for his paintings of people with their dogs and curiously, the perspective is from the vantage point of another dog and Bard’s dogs are always alert, on edge. There is a freshness to Bard’s paintings that are particularly impressive due to a paucity of sentimentality and lack of being cliché.
Francois Bard gives a part of himself in every canvas. The horizon-the vast limiting of human experience is a phenomenon that has fascinated Bard. The horizon draws a line between here and not-here, between day and night, good and evil, us and them.
Bard’s paintings can be described as ‘edgy.’ There is a dark, urban quality to his paintings that evoke both a sense of danger and of loneliness and alienation of modern, urban life. He achieves this not only through the darkness of coloration and much of his subject matter, but also by the isolation, even abstraction of his subjects. Bard not only favors the close-up, he often paints fragments: a man’s head, a woman’s legs, a man’s feet, or a cigarette butt on the sidewalk. His subjects are invariably shown waiting, alone, but waiting for what or for whom? He is also known for his paintings of people with their dogs and curiously, the perspective is from the vantage point of another dog and Bard’s dogs are always alert, on edge. There is a freshness to Bard’s paintings that are particularly impressive due to a paucity of sentimentality and lack of being cliché.
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