Martin Miguel, one of the regulars at the Galerie Depardieu, returns to us with his fragmented concrete blocks that, at first glance, seem eroded. This time, as spring demands, he presents them to us in a colorful array, each hue potentially evoking our region.
In the blue, one can see a pure cloudless sky; in the yellow, the sun reigning unchallenged; in the green, the forests of Mercantour; in the red, the passion of the Mediterranean people; and in the black, bulls as a Camargue native might say, though we prefer to see it as the veils of elderly women conversing in the squares of our villages.
With concrete and string, Martin Miguel seeks to oppose two rigidities, two souls whose depth is immutable. The string is used to outline the wall, to trace it; the artist frees himself from the laws of gravity, and his string undulates at the whims of creation’s caprices. Caprices, not chance.
The string, a wire here of iron, becomes an arc, a cross, a rectangle, and various geometric shapes. The concrete, imbued with colors, becomes a space of beauty and light. The wall is no longer gray or sad; it is a radiance and a hope. The colors are created with pigments, which, when applied to the concrete block, resemble kinky hair.
As one can see, Martin Miguel’s work can be interpreted in a thousand ways. A thousand? No, there are many more, as the string gives randomness its share in the final result of the paintings. Ultimately, it is up to each of us, each visitor, to see and feel these concrete blocks, as many walls, as many verses engraved in the cement of a pictorial poem. Is the iron rod a serpent, a string, a framework, or just a simple piece of scrap metal? Here too, the artist leaves it up to us to decide.
The exhibition can be seen until June 27 at the Galerie Depardieu in Nice. A rainbow in a world of concrete. Where does the poem begin? In the sober gray of the cement or in these colors, made delicate by pigment: blue, yellow, green, red, or black?
Thierry Jan
