Alexandre Valette

Sumie-e, Contemporary Abstract Oil Painting

2020

Alexandre Valette has a master degree in Art History and is a complete artist, influenced by the work of the great masters. He explores from a young age drawing through the human anatomy and then becomes interested in the principles of Western composition to arrive at abstraction. Studying the pictorial techniques of the great masters of the Renaissance, Alexandre quickly produces his own binders according to traditional methods. Then, he sets out to discover his contemporaries aiming at exploring painting in all its potentialities. Alexandre Valette is both passionate about chemistry and craftsmanship. It is his personal relationships that forged him: a master poet, a color maker, a musician. Learning is everywhere. He understands that being a painter is knowing how to see. To see it is necessary to leave. Fascinated by the origins of civilizations as well as the first artifacts of man, he is a tireless traveler. While traveling the world, reading Shitao and the precepts of Chinese painting, his painting becomes more precise and he eliminates the unnecessary. His gesture becomes a breath. A dance. He is now presenting the Eolithe (Stone of Dawn) series. With this collection, Alexandre combines two themes that have always been part of him: monoliths and other Neolithic alignments as well as traditional Chinese painting. He focuses here on the sign, the trace, the remains. Starting from a canvas entirely covered with black oil, he comes to engrave, to remove the material in a unique gesture. "The gesture must be perfect, otherwise you just have to cover everything and start over". Therefore, he reverses the principle of the white canvas and interprets the unique line specific to oriental calligraphy to carve the illusion of a dawn stone. Alexandre Valette has won several awards including the gold medal of the Grand Concours International 2011 of the Fédération Nationale de la Culture Française and the bronze medal of the Salon des Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2016. He has been exhibited in various galleries including Galerie Natacha Dassault and more recently at Gauchet Fine Arts. His works have joined many private collections.