It was in 2007 that the artist, a native of Arbonne in the Basque country, exhibited for the first time. Passionate about photos, he comes to painting little by little. Since then, this autodidact, always eager for new experiences, has never stopped researching and exploring to try to refine and simplify his work while remaining on his subject: the urban and street scenes. However, making it simple is sometimes complicated...

 

At the end of 2018, he received, in his house workshop in Arbonne, an art lover with whom he spoke at length. Gilles is challenged by the relevance of his remarks. If we had to sum up their exchanges in a few pieces of advice: “Let go! Do not try to please those who will discover your creations, and work!!! ".

 

Following this meeting, Gilles asked himself many questions about his art, and finally, it was clearer and it quite natural, without thinking too much this time, that he decided to leave the "classic" support of the canvas to put his brushes and paint on wood. He began to paint on old pallets stored in a corner of his garden. December 2018: the “palette” series was born.

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Since then, he has continued to make us travel in his universe, with or without a character. Through his figurative subjects, he likes to suggest and let the spectator imagine the end or the continuation of the story. By using this raw medium, which has its past, its surprises, and its reactions, it brings softness, and warmth to urban landscapes, sometimes hard, cold and austere. Other subjects appear in this new series, with a nod to wood with its books, its superheroes or its golfers.

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Whatever the subject, he respects the wood and its past, and plays with what some might take for faults. It is a real exchange between the artist and the material, in an almost "reciprocal" way.