Faiseurs d'emmerdes pour sur 2002

Francois Arnal made this painting with colourful gestural marks in red, green, blue, and black against a neutral background, and I can almost feel him doing it. I think this painting came into being kind of like jazz: a series of improvisations, errors, and recoveries as the artist worked through it. It is like he is embracing the inherent messiness and unpredictability of the medium itself. I am drawn to the red lines that seem to playfully dance across the surface, each one telling a story of spontaneous creation. The painting invites us to consider not only what we see but how we see, opening up a space where intuition and feeling take precedence over fixed meanings. It reminds me of other painters, like Joan Mitchell, who embraced a similar approach to colour and mark-making. Artists are constantly in dialogue, and in doing so, they inspire each other’s creativity. The magic of painting is that it embraces ambiguity, which allows for so many meanings.