Biography of the Artist

Season of Fire, 40 x 60 cm, 1996 The artist Bernard Besson was born in Lyons, France, in 1950. He lives and works in his studio in the city of Lyons and in his studio in the Ardèche mountains in southern France, dedicating himself since 1988 entirely to his artistic activity. He has participated in several exhibitions in France, Switzerland, and Germany, but the most extensive exhibition you can see is the one here on the Internet.

His work is neither an abstract, nor a concrete view of both microcosm and macrocosm, inspired by details in nature ( "Végéotalis and Géotalis"). There is no design, neither any work on forms, but rather an atmosphere that is transmitted.

This atmosphere can be in relation with reality, like the foggy landscapes in the series "Variations on a Winter Landscape" that uses a transfiguration of a material. Here, the material completely adapts to the painting ; it is placed as it is in position to be seen, beyond its prosaic reality.

Meeting in the Maures Mountains, 92 x 65 cm, 1988The atmosphere can become imaginary when shapeless forms of matter are suspended in the air, like in the series "Fictional Landscapes". In this macrocosm everything is imperfect, supernatural - forms appear like in fiction, sometimes enigmatic and alarming, sometimes beautiful and mysterious ( "After the Storm - Flying off" or "Icarus' Wing" ). The work to go through with matter is always based on intuition and any imperfect result must be accepted as it is without any aesthetic effect.

These atmospheres can also be archaeological, from this place or any other, like in the series "Surfaces" or "The Flood". The density of color and the aspect of matter transport the observer beyond our world in a space of sensations.

Finally, the atmospheres sometimes get more poetic, like in the latest series "Grasses" and "Lichens", half-way between reality and fantasy. What the painting transmits is serenity and stimulation.

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