Vernissage on Thursday 26 May

Where and how can we classify – as we are always supposed to do, to some extent – the art of Christophe Boursault? Why not as a live performance? A live performance that would be capable of leaving a trace, or even a leakage. We are live, in a true state of emergency, neither in a symbolic sense nor to scare people off, but to address what is essential and to experience hardship: the abstraction from which he extracts sensations and memories.

For his third personal exhibition at Polad-Hardouin gallery, the painter, draughtsman, performer and video-maker Christophe Boursault pursues in his paintings and drawings his great work of delocalisation. Abstraction and figuration, raw gestures and reflection, acrylic and spray paint, drawing and writing meet and clash in a permanent quest for identity.

His works feature forms of vanitas as in “J’ai changé ” and “Far”, two topsy-turvy works that seem to make fun of themselves. Nothing is serious, everything is true. Gravity must be jostled to be grave. The painting “La fuite des egos”, which gives its title to the exhibition, sets the tempo: let’s expose ourselves but let’s also forget ourselves, let’s forget everybody, artists included! A utopia, precisely. But the raw presence of painting is truly there.

Colour and lines at the end of the gesture.

Making the invisible visible requires plenty of colour. Which is why Boursault does not paint: he erupts. Not necessarily with a smile, but with humour and tomfoolery. Of course, he is not the first to splash colour across space. But each of his paintings is the beginning of a conquest. As he races on, he leaves words and clues in his wake. Try to follow or solve them and you’re sure to get lost. Which is probably his goal. Boursault sends an invitation but there is no destination, just a path scattered with crazy paintings. We follow it, half impressed, half terrified – fascinated.

“I love impulsive painters and outsider art. One should learn to deal with randomness and violence while trying not to lose one’s playfulness. I want to play to the limit”.

Christophe Boursault lives and works in Marseille, a city as spontaneous as he is and where his works are regularly showcased. After graduating from the Villa Arson DNSEP in Nice in 2004, he took part in numerous collective exhibition in Europe (Prague, Berlin, London, Lausanne, Hamburg...) and in the US (New York). From 7 April to 4 June 2016, he will have a personal exhibition at the gallery Van De Loo Projekte in Munich Van De Loo Projekte. In 2012 at Villa Arson, he also took part in A la vie délibérée, an exhibition on the history of performance on the French Riviera.

Antoine Rochin