Written for Madame X, a collector, March 17, 2025
I may begin a painting - wether large or small - with a desire for colour.
It's not always the case. It comes naturally.
In this painting and other small-format works from 2023 - both those that preceded and followed it - Ultramarine Blue has taken center stage. It is a colour I love and to which I have given a special place because of its ancient history and the fact that its pigments are ground from the semiprecious stone Lapis Lazuli.
This blue is both contemporary and imbued with memory.
The reddish - brown in the background, evoking the same sense of depth, is steeped in it.
That said, the process will continue through a interplay of sounds, scents, touch, emotion, and warmth with these red-pinks and pink-reds in various shades, coexisting, clashing, constructing or deconstructing a "frame".
This idea of essential lines emerging or fading away - a framework - drawing - is a recurrent theme in my painting.
D.Romeyer