"Emmanuel Ballangé peint des repertoires de formes et de touches. Celles-ci sont inspirées par l'immense vocabulaire légué par l'histoire de la peinture. Parfois lisses comme celles d'Ad Reinhardt, parfois hachurées comme celles des impressionnistes ou maigres comme celles de Modigliani... ou différentes encore au gré des inspirations...
Le tableau n'est ici, ni une fenêtre, ni un all-over "à la Pollock", ni une projection mais plutôt un cadre/outil où une confrontation problématique est tentée. Emmanuel Ballangé trafique le symbolique, mélange les genres, perturbe nos cohérences, voir notre mémoire...
Avec une question lancinante et sous-jacente à son travail : qu'est-ce que regarder au temps des hypermarchés de l'image ?"
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PEINTURES - 02 - 2017
Peintures récentes d'Emmanuel Ballangé / texte de présentation
Ma peinture est limite. Elle l’est dans le faire mais aussi dans ce qui s’y passe. J’assume et crée cette fragilité.
J’utilise des formes (ronds, rectangles, triangles,... ) appartenant à tout le monde. Ma peinture est abstraite mais mon but est bien de faire surgir un objet bien réel destiné à provoquer une rencontre.
Emmanuel Ballangé
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" HEXAGONES "
A partir de la figure géométrique hexagonale, Emmanuel Ballangé prend le parti d’une peinture à la fois balisée et hors-piste. Il s’approprie cette forme (l’hexagone) pour mieux la détourner, la retourner et parfois presque l’abandonner.
S’il en maitrise le jeu, au bout du compte le jeu de la peinture lui indique qu’en Art il n’y a pas de règles fixes, pas de préméditation.
Ses tableaux sont des propositions à géométries variables, qui agacent, questionnent, troublent (au sens de la séduction) et mettent à l’ordre du jour une abstraction positivement décalée car sans imagination et sans triomphe.
Anne Garidou / Novembre 2013
Starting from the hexagonal geometrical figure, Emmanuel Ballangé is showing his favour for a form of painting that loves to hit the smooth, prepared slopes whilst skiing off-track at the same time. He appropriates the hexagonal shape so that he may divert from it, turn it around and even sometimes come close to dropping it altogether.
He might master the technique but in the end, the play of painting shows him that Art has no fixed rules, no preconceived ideas.
His paintings are flexible proposals which tease, challenge and torment us (in the seductive sense); they put on the agenda a positively unhinged form of abstraction for it is without imagination or triumph.
Anne Garidou / November 2013
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Interview parue sur le blog "Standard interview" en février 2012 :(http://standardinterview.blogspot.fr/2012/02/emmanuel-ballange.html)
Can you briefly describe what you do?
I am a French painter and I live in the southwest of France, in Bordeaux. I work on canvas (oil) or on paper (gouache) from preliminary, predetermined geometrical drawings (circles, triangles, trapeziums, peculiar shapes). My paintings are neither illusionistic nor demonstrative.
And, how long that you been doing that?
I have been painting series for the last 12 years.
What drives you to make work?
Shape is Thought. Pictures, paintings are the expression of Poetry which could shake the meaning of the world. An unprejudiced, and as much as possible - undetermined expression. Pissaro said: ‘my conscience became free as did my eyes.’
Can you tell me something of your day-to-day working practices?
I work in series. I do not work every day since I teach in an Art School to earn my living. When I am in my studio I first work systematically on my drawings and then paint accordingly. Regularity and discipline are very important to me.
They prevent any romantic and/or sentimental drifts: one should paint even if one doesn't feed in the mood...
Which artists have had the greatest affect on your work?
Morandi, Bram van veld and Matisse.
What, outside visual art, informs your practice?
Roland Barthes (1915-1980) writer and art critic who wrote: ‘one must not seek to express the inexpressible, but to un-express the expressible.’
How would you like people to engage with your work?
I expect the viewer to feel free, tolerant and open to any visual experience.
Have you seen anything recently that has made an impression?
The Franois Morellet reinstallations exhibition at the Modern Art Centre (Centre Pompidou, Paris) in 2010 and most exhibits at the Jordan contemporary art Gallery in Paris.
Do you have anything exciting on the horizon?
A large series of gouaches which I hope to exhibit shortly.