Monday, September 24, 2007

GRUAU


The paired words "black and white" express an infinite richness in aesthetic, artistic and symbollic terms.
In illustration, they immediately evoke engraving and the paired concepts dropout/relief, in photography negative/positive, in printing ink/paper, as well as empty and full, shadow and light.
The white surface of the paper is empty until a line or a point brings it to life. Then the emptiness becomes white and light in contrast to the black. In drawing, the artist eliminates the light the way a sculptor cuts away the unwanted parts of a block of stone. Emptiness and fullness, like black and white, are ambivalent.
The artist is a demiurge whose hand makes reality emerge from abstraction, organizes the space of a piece of paper and gives it meaning. The line becomes a sign, a form of communication.

--Rejane Bargiel, from RENE GRUAU-- The Art Of Advertising, Le Cherche Midi Editeur, 1999.