PIERRE PASSANI

Born in 1952, trained at the National Superior School of Fine Arts in Paris and then in Lyon where he set up his first studio. Pierre PASSANI began his artistic career in the 1970s.
 
His initial inspiration comes from Action Painting, Psychedelism, Abstract Expressionism and Lyrical Abstraction. In 1973, his first abstract colored inks are still borrowed from the "tachist" current as a starting point for experimentation with mixed media on paper.
While being in the abstraction, he is then in search of a state of perception, of meeting, of appearance of forms. He says: "Nothing is ever synchronous: everything that is experienced is never transcribed immediately, but sometimes reappears without me even expecting it. He was no less attentive to certain productions of Lyrical Abstraction, and then timidly discovered Indian ink while remaining very curious about modern European painting from the 17th to the 19th century. His curiosity is also nourished by his frequent visits to classical and mythological literature. This allowed him to create his own narrative, which soon found an echo in a precise exploration of German Romanticism, until the historical emergence of the notion of unheimlich ("disturbing strangeness of reality").

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From then on, his work was regularly shown in personal exhibitions (Paris, Lyon, Zurich, Brussels, Clermont-Ferrand) with a phase of exclusive work in oil before turning towards a claim to black as a source of light from the intensive practice of Indian ink, which still accompanies him today and allows him, from the 1980s, a notable participation in the International Salon of Graphic Art in Ozaka (Japan). In 1983-1984, he became an actor in the Jacques Voyet company for the show "Les Possédées" for several performances at the Théâtre National de Chaillot in Paris, directed by Antoine Vitez.
The return to oil on canvas then gradually takes place towards a presence from 1984 to 1989 in a private salon in Zurich where he sells almost all his production, exceptionally and with the support of the art critic Alois Steiner. His collaboration with the theater world as an actor and stage designer nourishes his creation.

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From this dramatic experience, which ended in 2010, he kept a taste for the creation of installations conceived as settings or places of memory when "painting is not enough". However, painting remains Pierre PASSANI's preferred mode of expression. The latter notion is confirmed in his career by the original variation that he created in twenty pieces from handwritten scores from 2017 to 2020 for his exhibition "Rivages" at the Galerie des Marches in Aubusson.