Casquette jaune

François Bard’s paintings seem simple: the material is built layer by layer, from the dark background to the touches of light, marked by the tools, the brush strokes, frottis, scraping, imperfections on the surface, drips, thin, asphalt-looking glazing staining the picture like accidental splatters. In his precise, flamboyant paintings, he captures the objective and the subjective, the outside and the inside.

“I like it when the human figure triggers something in the on looker, but without imposing too much nevertheless,” says François Bard. “Hence the fact that I often avoid faces to show the subject's backs and suggest more than I actually describe. I try to find the myth in the commonplace. It is almost propaganda for my everyday life.”