Ma démarche artistique

GALLVS XXI

HERE,

An approach to my artistic process in three points accompanied by classic questions:

Words are written, painting them seems to me to be a difficulty that I will try to clarify.

Completely self-taught, over time, I have evolved to more ambitious exhibition goals. Not living from my artistic activity, a passion I exercise pragmatically, my main goal is to gain visibility. I look for exhibition spaces to meet, exchange, and submit myself to public criticism. This is a way to move forward. Sales are an incidental act that I do not have an obsessive ambition for. The very occasional sales allow me to make the cost of my passion almost invisible.

Je concrétise, en moyenne, deux à trois expositions par an. Le retour du public est positif. C’est une joie particulière, une fierté même, lorsque des jeunes déclarent apprécier mes toiles. Leur regard spontané, libre de codes, me touche profondément et me conforte dans l’idée que l’Art est bien un langage international et inter générationnel.

"GALLVS" is a pseudonym. It's useful when you don't want to reveal your identity. It is also a way to detach from the "self," to take a distance from one's ego, one's consciousness, one's intimacy, and to stage the whole in a mirror entity. It is not a matter of a split personality, but of height, of intellectual distance.

A/ THAT IS WHAT IT IS ALL ABOUT

• What am I trying to say with my work?

Less than affirming, I try to pose the image as a silent and open invitation.I tell myself that this work, which isn’t really work since it brings me fulfillment and happiness, is more of a philosophical, philanthropic endeavor.It's a great way to meet people and a way to get visitors to talk rather than just pretending.For me, painting is also a reflection on feeling stimulated by another perspective.

• What subject do my works deal with?

The chosen themes are intended to be uncontroversial or innocuous. They are generally scenes of urban or rural life. The daily situation, sufficiently anxiety-provoking, leads me to build a wall of serenity. I want to build a moment between the visitor and himself, to make him travel, to bring him into a world of sensitivity and inner peace. But it is also a challenge. Like a still life, how can an image of an ordinary daily life become an interesting testimony? This is a concern for me: the choice of the scene, a moment of life where I have the chance to find myself. I really appreciate Spain for its architecture, the saturation of its light.

My painting practice is rooted in an exploration of the subtle transformation of reality. I work primarily with oil, using a preliminary photographic process. These are select scenes that I think have a certain poetic quality. Time and space appeal to me as a visual connection. I'm sensing "something" here, now. I often only have one or two seconds to use my phone, which I use like a fisherman uses his fishing rod. And when luck smiles upon me, I know I’ve grasped something.

The painting then becomes a second look, a visual rewriting of the world. I don't try to faithfully reproduce the photograph, even if I want to preserve its essence, but I simplify what seems to me to be a distraction from the subject and extrapolate the graphic. The transition from digital to pictorial allows me to freeze time, reintroduce matter, gesture, and question our relationship to the image in a society saturated with videos that are as instantaneous as they are ephemeral. It's mainly the comfort of exploiting the photo in its raw state. And, like a sculptor, extract a personal representation from a block of marble. I am interested in time in a busy world.

My compositions are figurative; abstract is a graphic tool for me, not an end. Moreover, my "tears," as I call them, sometimes give birth to or invite other figurative forms. This back and forth between apparent reality and hidden false fiction, between capture and recreation, allows me to play with the subjectivity of the gaze and the way we construct our own visual narratives. With ambition, I always hope to awaken the child in the visitor, whether he suddenly rounds his eyes or shows his index finger accompanied by a "Look there!"

B/ WHY I DO IT ?

What drives me is to freeze what will inevitably disappear: a ray of light, a posture, an atmosphere. By painting from modified images, I attempt to freeze what in life is constantly passing — as a way of resisting forgetfulness, not out of nostalgia but in the spirit of the work of our illustrious elders, painting the memory of humans. It is a work of history as much as a message, a testimony for future generations.

• Who influenced my work?

Mon langage pictural est nourri d’influences multiples dont la source est bien évidement ma jeunesse : la liberté gestuelle et lumineuse des impressionnistes, la narration graphique des bandes dessinées… Plus les aléas difficiles que chacun rencontre dans sa vie. Ces éléments ont façonné ma signature graphique, à la fois sensible et structurée, où la couleur dialogue avec le trait, et où chaque composition raconte un moment silencieusement.

Les impressionnistes continuent de m’apprendre à capter l’instant, à jouer avec la lumière et à laisser le regard respirer. La bande dessinée, elle, m’a transmis le goût du cadrage, du rythme visuel, et de la tension narrative. Enfin, les coups du destin ont inscrit dans ma peinture une forme de sincérité brute, une volonté de dire sans détour, mais avec poésie. L’apprentissage est incessant. Chaque peinture est une remise en question mêlée d’excitation et de stresse, c’est un nouveau rendez-vous, un nouveau challenge.

My pictorial language is nourished by multiple influences, the source of which is obviously my youth: the gestural and luminous freedom of the Impressionists, the graphic storytelling of comic books... Plus the difficult challenges that each person encounters in their life. These elements have shaped my graphic signature, both sensitive and structured, where color dialogues with the line, and where each composition tells a moment silently.

The Impressionists continue to teach me how to capture the moment, play with light, and let the eye breathe. Comic books, on the other hand, have taught me the importance of framing, visual rhythm, and narrative tension. Finally, the twists of fate have instilled in my painting a form of raw sincerity, a desire to say without circumlocution, but with poetry. The learning is incessant. Each painting is a challenge mixed with excitement and stress, it's a new appointment, a new challenge.

It's a good school of humility.

The other driving force is the contemporary social situation, blinded by conflicts, foolishness, and violence. Art leads to reflection, it oxygenates the mind, inspires youth, speaks to people who ask nothing. Sometimes he asserts himself through his silence. It is an important means of appeasement because it imposes nothing but offers itself freely. A veteran, I aspire to create these pacified zones.

• What audience do my paintings address?

My work is for everyone, without any distinction. I paint for "tomorrow," regardless of age, background, or sensitivity. Universality is a central principle: I want everyone to find an emotion, a resonance, a story that belongs to them.

I'm not a fan of social media. I don't spend my time on different platforms. I am well aware that they are the inevitable communication vectors, but I find them time-consuming, superfluous, and dumbing down for the majority of them. I am present on Meta and Instagram as "JM GALLVS" but I do not cultivate my virtual promotion. Human interaction is fundamental, authentic, which is why I seek physical spaces to create places for encounters between Art and the Public.

C/ HOW I DO IT ?

I paint, ultimately, as I construct my poems: More with my head and heart, which are my true hands. However, the fundamentals of construction are rooted in a discipline that I observe. The principles of perspective, scale, and both vertical and horizontal lines are basic rules for me. Maybe it's a paternal instinct when I worked on construction sites with him.

• What are your work methods (support, style, formal decisions, organization...)?

I generally use square 3D canvases. Square, because the format reassures me, it represents equality of directions for me. Then 3D because I also paint the edges. This gives the painting depth, inviting the viewer to continue, and it also gives the artist freedom: the frame becomes optional. As one approaches the painting, one enters it slowly; as one moves away, one leaves it gently.

If some frames embellish a canvas, it's a siege, a stifling, a heavy and useless garment for me. My canvases are bare because Nature, truth, anger, love... are in their manifestation. I use almost only oils. The slowness of their drying, the power of their vibrancy, the nobility of their hue, their longevity... correspond to me.

I also spend a lot of time looking at my progress, critiquing my work as much as painting because I'm looking for the error, the line that is not correctly aligned in the origin of the perspective, the shadow and the light that are not well matched, the proportion of a character in space, the imagined scales and those that can be assumed, the coherence of the whole, ... That's what I love about photography and what I use it for. The photo doesn't lie; it's a good starting point for an inner travel.