AND THERE WAS LIGHT
May 15 - June 13
Gérard Gasquet's painting has a kind of silent presence, a restrained density, as if each canvas contained an invisible tension, a muted light, a suspended vibration. The aim is not to represent, still less to illustrate. Painting is not a discourse, but an act. An act of looking, of solitude, of integrity.
After several years of voluntary withdrawal from the institutional circuit, devoted to independent pictorial research, Gérard Gasquet is back in the gallery. A quiet return, but one of rare intensity. And there was light, the title of this exhibition, does not refer to a sudden illumination, but to the light that pierces slowly, by layers, by restraint, into the very heart of matter.
Gasquet seeks neither to convince nor to please. He paints out of necessity, out of fidelity to a demand that is not distracted by fashion. It's a painting of the beat between the overflowing and the almost nothing, a painting that pursues its own light
- Lucie Braconnier
Véronique, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 146 x 114 cm
BIOGRAPHIE
Gérard Gasquet est un artiste peintre, né en 1945. Il étudie aux Beaux-Arts de Lyon et de Paris ; il a également enseigné pendant près de quarante ans, transmettant une vision exigeante et passionnée de la peinture à de nombreuses générations d'étudiants.
Son travail se caractérise par une grande liberté formelle et une approche intuitive de la couleur. Il est nourri d'une méditation constante sur la figure humaine, en particulier féminine, souvent abordée comme vecteur d'émotion, de mystère et de lumière. Sa peinture, à la fois charnelle et spirituelle, interroge le visible et ce qui s'y dissimule.
Artiste reconnu, il a exposé dans de nombreuses institutions en France et à l'étranger. Ses œuvres figurent dans les collections publiques de la Ville de Lyon, du Département du Rhône et de plusieurs fondations privées. Il a collaboré avec des architectes et des commanditaires religieux sur des projets d'envergure, tout en poursuivant une recherche picturale personnelle, hors des modes et du bruit du monde.
Fidèle à une recherche d'exigence et de justesse, Gasquet poursuit aujourd'hui, dans le silence de l'atelier, une peinture habitée, sensuelle et lumineuse.
Et la lumière fut...
BIOGRAPHY
Gérard Gasquet is a painter, born in 1945.
Trained at the Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Paris, he also taught there for almost forty years, passing on a demanding and passionate vision of painting to many generations of students.
His work is characterized by great formal freedom and an intuitive approach to color. It is nourished by a constant meditation on the human figure, particularly the female, often approached as a vector of emotion, mystery and light. His painting, at once carnal and spiritual, questions the visible and what lies hidden within it.
A recognized artist, he has exhibited in numerous institutions in France and abroad. His works can be found in the public collections of the City of Lyon, the Rhône Department and several private foundations. He has collaborated with architects and religious clients on large-scale projects, while pursuing a personal pictorial quest that stands apart from fashion and the noise of the world.
Today, in the silence of his studio, Gasquet pursues his quest for exacting standards and precision in his sensual, luminous paintings.
And there was light...
With his realistic figuration, which reveals the broad, vigorous brushstrokes, Gasquet immediately imposes a serious reading, in which all the flagrant splendor of the human body is revealed, as well as the heartbreaking vulnerability of the individual.
His preoccupation goes beyond the elementary aspects of simple pictorial creation... He paints the impossible relationship between what belongs to the human and what is “mystery”.
If he uses materials to explore bodies on the surface, it's not to stay with the appearance of the subject, but to draw us into inspired forms, on a journey to the depths where the true “image” of being lies, which can only be perceived by the eye of the heart.
His painting is concerned with revealing the human being to himself, and to those who are willing to contemplate him... to those who know that we exist on this earth only through the indispensable presence of others.
Gasquet is elsewhere, as if “beyond”; in a personal, protected territory that cannot be defined in the simple words of mortal understanding. This “no man's land” has been crossed by a few in the history of painting, at a time when we knew how to take the fault line between here and nowhere, and who showed how narrow the passage is between the fragility of life and the intoxication of the promise of death that surrounds everyone.
In his painting language, Gasquet proposes asceticism, in the image of Zurbarán's monk, who imposes a form of humility as the only path to splendor.
- Bernard Gouttenoire.
Gérard Gasquet, la présence de l'invisible.
Gérard Gasquet, the presence of the invisible. - Gérard Duchêne.
"Ce que sera notre chemin personnel, celui de notre passage sur cette planète, elle le sait. Le fil rouge d'une existence, de notre vie, est là, entre ses mains. Dans son sourire qui se dessine, c'est une question de vision de nous-mêmes, comme si nous voulions à tout prix connaître le secret gardé par elle [...]"
“What our personal path will be, the path of our passage on this planet, she knows. The red thread of an existence, of our life, is there, in her hands. In her smile, it's a question of our vision of ourselves, as if we were desperate to know the secret she keeps [...]”.
Rahab, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 146 x 114 cm
Catherine de Sienne, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 80 x 80 cm
Signe, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm
"Et ces mains qui expriment cette intense vibration intérieure qui voudrait tellement atteindre ce que le corps ne peut lui accorder, ces mains, qui se cherchent, qui se ferment, qui enserrent, qui libèrent, qui jouent, qui se cachent, qui veillent, ces mains, frontière ultime de cette onde incandescente qui nous parcourt sans répit."
"And these hands, expressing the intense inner vibration that so desperately wants to reach that which the body cannot grant, these hands that seek each other, that close, that embrace, that liberate, that play, that hide, that watch over, these hands, the ultimate frontier of this incandescent wave that runs through us without respite."
"Et ces regards qui, du spleen à l'interrogation, de l'introspection à l'impassibilité, de la certitude à la connivence, nous entraînent sur les traces d'un ancien brasier transformé en un apaisement consenti, ces regards qui, sous la cendre des désirs enfouis, ont en partage un feu refusant à tout jamais de s'éteindre."
Un léger bruit, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
And these gazes which, from spleen to questioning, from introspection to impassivity, from certainty to connivance, take us on the trail of an ancient inferno transformed into a consensual appeasement, these gazes which, beneath the ashes of buried desires, share a fire that refuses forever to be extinguished.
Agathe, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 60 x 60 cm
"Gérard Gasquet, c'est le regard intérieur pénétrant l'essentiel, ce sont les mains en quête d'une autre dimension, c'est l'âme déployant ses ailes."
"Gérard Gasquet is the inner gaze penetrating the essential, the hands searching for another dimension, the soul spreading its wings.
La nudité, cet habit primitif perdu, est devenue un corps d'illusion dont l'essence n'est visible que seulement si nous pouvons nous mettre totalement à nu, sans aucune retenue.
À Angèle de Foligno, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm
Dos de l'ange, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm (à gauche)
Nudity, that lost primitive garb, has become a body of illusion whose essence is only visible if we can lay ourselves bare, without restraint.
Genèse, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
(à droite) Illusion, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
"Ensuite, une fois franchies les bornes corporelles, ce qui nous anime prend peu à peu forme et irradie notre contemplation.
Drap d'oubli, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 50 x 50 cm
“Then, once we've crossed our bodily boundaries, what moves us gradually takes shape and radiates our contemplation.
Lévitation, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 24 x 19 cm
(à droite) L'œil, huile sur toile, oil on canvas, 81 x 65 cm
Photo : Jean-Luc Mège Photography
PRINCIPALES EXPOSITIONS PERSONNELLES
2025
Et la lumière fut, Galerie Partage, Lyon 2021
Galerie L’Œil Écoute, Lyon 2017
Galerie Le Soleil sur la Place, Lyon 2013
Galerie Le Soleil sur la Place, Lyon 2010
Galerie Le Soleil sur la Place, Lyon 2007
Galerie Le Soleil sur la Place, Lyon 2004
Galerie Le Soleil sur la Place, Lyon 2011
D’un corps l’autre, Galerie Aittouarès, Paris 2006
Figures contemporaines, Galerie Aittouarès, Paris 2000
Galerie Aittouarès, Paris 1999
Galerie Alice Chartier, Lyon 1997
Galerie Alice Chartier, Lyon 1997
Galerie Traboule 91, Lyon 1988
Bologna Landy Gallery, East Hampton / New York 1984
Bologna Landy Gallery, East Hampton / New York 1984
Galerie K – Roger Kowalski, Lyon 1983
Galerie K – Roger Kowalski, Lyon 1981
Galerie K – Roger Kowalski, Lyon 1978
Galerie K – Roger Kowalski, Lyon 1974
Galerie K – Roger Kowalski, Lyon
AUTRES EXPOSITIONS
2024
Masculin / Féminin, Galerie Tomaselli, Lyon
2009
Entre autrefois et aujourd’hui, Le Polaris, Corbas
2005
L’Attrape Couleur, Lyon-Vaise
2003
La chair et Dieu, Hôtel-Dieu, Lyon
1999
Salon de mai, Paris
1998
Exposition, Le Toboggan, Décines
1983
Tendances 83, Fondation Hubert d’Urkerman, Grenoble
Exposition, Nicolas Treadwell / Denne Hill, Angleterre
1980
Figures de l’enfermement, ELAC, Lyon
Figures de l’enfermement, Montpellier
Cloître des Carmélites, Francfort
1976
La réalité en question, ELAC, Lyon
PROJETS PUBLICS & EXPOSITIONS PARTICULIÈRES
1985
Rétrospective, Artrium, Auditorium de Lyon
50 et 2 grands formats, Ville de Vénissieux
En dehors du Dragon qui veille, les choses ne sont pas gardées, Église du Bon Pasteur, Lyon
1982
Exposition, Hôtel de Ville, Villeurbanne
Réalisation d’un mur peint de 300 m², Villeurbanne
DISTINCTIONS
1979
Prix de la critique, ELAC, Lyon
Exemplaire n° … /100
Photos : Jean-Luc Mège Photography.
PARTAGE,
