Apres l'amour
Acrylic on
canvas. 30 x 40" (76 x 101 cm)
Painted 1993
in Miami Beach
Text
by Jim Tommaney:
Pierre
Marcel paints the inner mind, the emotions that
haunt us and reward us, the passions and fears we
cannot live with and certainly cannot live without.
His talent is to express emotion through the architectural
vagaries and the coastal ambience of South Beach,
with the semblance of conventional postcard transmuted
through the alchemy of art into a riveting mystery,
making us think: Wait a minute, what is going on
here?!
He
captures the sense of emptiness, and expectation,
that follow a romantic interlude on a holiday afternoon.
Seagulls circle idly as winds bend curtains to their
command. The walls have disappeared, as have protagonists,
yet the room is heavy with excitement and energy.
Why, for example, is that floor warped-did the earth
shake, in Hemingway's famous phrase?
Are
these building bending for a better look, architectural
voyeurs looking for the curved arch of a naked back?
Are they envious of fragility of humans? Or of our
durability? Do they seek companionship among themselves,
thinking yes, I will bond with that edifice?
And
all in daylight, harsh, unforgiving. Not for Marcel
the elongations of a Modigliani or the shadows of
a deChirico. What is to be seen is to be seen clearly,
and the buildings echo the reality of newly- acclaimed
architecture, and the accompanying sand and shore
of South Beach. But the reality is subtly changed
, so that we are compelled to enter this magical
world and re-orient ourselves. And seek to understand,
and see what we had not understood or seen before.
So
the daylight is deceptive, deliberately, an illusionist's
trick to entice us to lower our guard and be seduced
into the Looking Glass, where things are not as
they seem, where the pedestrian becomes exotic and
the exotic commonplace.
And
so I see here the ephemeral emotion which follows
a romantic interlude on a holiday afternoon, the
faint shadowy hint of mortality that brushes against
our cheeks. Others may see- what others may see.
For that is one of Pierre Marcel's strength's, that
he captures a truth and shows it to us, but allows
us to decide for ourselves the nature and shape
of that truth.
1993 Jim Tommaney
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