To explain the evolution of her painting in 2018, Hélene Jacqz wrote : « I wanted more lightness, to free myself from the process of filling up the entire canvas with colors, and abandon the heavy tools. I wanted to return to simple and light gestures, like annotations. »
At the same time, in my « Anachronical Chronicle of the Wanderer N ° 18 » in « Saisons de Culture » I had her work in mind when I wrote :
« I would like to give this chronicle the subtitle of « Ode to painting when painted », that is to say still painted with brushes and colors on canvas. » Because I keep finding painting, in all its forms, extremely fascinating. I first loved it when it was called « informal painting », « abstract expressionism », « abstract landscapism », « geometric abstraction ». Decried in the first part of the twentieth century, then widely acclaimed in the second part, now that it has become one genre among others, and because it is sometimes said to be « out of fashion », it seems to me that it is often viewed very superficially, and too hastily judged…
In abstraction, there are still many ways to paint. The circles drawn with a quick hand by Hélène Jacqz offer another kind of visual promenade, much more concrete than abstract. It offers to the eye a juggling of colored hoops, a joyfully danced saraband.
Before their hanging in the Galerie Insula, rue des Grands Augustins, in Paris, Hélène wanted to show me her most recent paintings in her studio in Montrouge, and I wrote for her a short text entitled « Ritournelles » Here it is :
Since 1988, I have witnessed, always with surprise and often with wonder, the new harvests that each Hélène Jacqz’ new exhibition offers to our eyes. From the little Bonnards or Vuillards, these figurative vignettes that she executed to perfection after graduating from the Académie des Beaux Arts, to the very large « abstract » formats that she tackled upon her return from the United States a few years later, canvases that required training and the physical form of a long-distance runner, she performed in many different registers. So I was wondering this morning in February 2018: What will she have done for us again this time?
I remembered a film made in 2017 by Robin Tardieu on her work in which we saw how painting in her studio was a clinch with the canvas, gymnastics, a sport of combat. Huge formats filled at the speed of movement by very large brushes, loaded with thick colors. And Hélène, in an astronaut suit smeared with spurts and splashes of paint, discovering, cutting out and accepting the finds born of her large impulsive gestures and intuitions.
Surprise, surprise, this morning, the colored backgrounds have disappeared. There is white, there is space, in other words air. And a whole new light. These are variations on a theme, a repeating pattern. It’s cheerful and light like the chorus of a musical piece. It’s serial painting or maybe just a series of ritornellos.
Obviously, it has nothing to do with a wallpaper motif. Yet there is one of those paintings, reminiscent for me of the haunting roses of an American hotel tapestry, that I could see coming to haunt my bedroom.
Hélène Jacqz has in common with certain actors and musicians that before entering the scene, it is not uncommon for her to suffer tremendous stage fright. But for as long as I’ve known her, I know that it is a pretty good sign. As soon as the first canvases will be stretched, a profusion of new avenues will open to her, and we’ll be left with an incredible embarrassment of choice. Ultimately, it is in this profusion that a collector will find his or her happiness, choosing a painting from this new series of vibrant shapes and fresh colors.
Marc Albert-Levin 2018