Aphrodite, Jouissance de l'espace 1975

Rene Duvillier made this Aphrodite, Jouissance de l'espace with paint and perhaps some kind of broad brush or squeegee. The way he's laid down these marks, it feels almost like a performance, a kind of dance with the materials. Look at the juicy redness of that central form, how it bleeds into the surrounding space. You can almost feel the artist's hand moving across the surface, leaving these traces of pigment and texture. The paint isn’t too thick but isn't thin, it's almost like an egg tempera that has a little translucency to it. See that drip right at the bottom? It's a reminder of the physical properties of paint. It acknowledges gravity, and time, and that's so important. Duvillier reminds me a little of Franz Kline but with more playfulness. Both artists seem interested in the physicality and gestural movement that can be captured on canvas, but where Kline can be brooding, Duvillier feels like he's winking at us. Art should be like that, embracing ambiguity, inviting us to see things in our own way, rather than telling us what to think.