POINT OF VIEW


Somewhere as beautiful as anywhere 

With this new set of canvases entitled "Somewhere as beautiful as before", Julien Graizely devotes himself more than ever to the exercise of figuration: like accelerated film scenes, he questions the time that passes and that escapes to us. The artist in no way seeks to explore a particular theme: the ideas mingle with each other according to his work. The presence and then the disappearance are continuous, like imprints left on a landscape or in memories.

Julien Graizely works his canvas by superimposing patterns and materials: adding then erasing and starting again and again. Sometimes there is almost nothing left on his web – nothing? not exactly. These bright and flamboyant colors, intertwined with anonymous figures, give an eminently narrative dimension, always charged with mysteries and the unspoken. These landscapes, beaches and deserts dear to the artist are peaceful places where light and bodies express themselves, intersect, escape and look at each other.

The artist talks about the subject of color and tells us: “Yellow, always yellow? Why do I choose yellow? What does it have to offer? Although this discreet color is not widely used, Michel Pastoureau considers it the color of the future and of prosperity. With yellow, I have a greater desire to completely let go. To let everything that goes through my head exist even more. Not to hesitate to spoil, damage, cross out, erase, write and face. My characters are often seen from behind; there, they look at the one that looks. They talk to him and write to him. These bits of phrases, puns or song titles are normally left on the studio walls or written on scraps of paper; but I decided that this time they had their place on the web. »

Olivier Waltman
Paris, February 2022

 


Waiting

« What to do, what to paint after such a particular 2020 ? For his fourth solo exhibition with the gallery, Julien Graizely aims to question our world, as frozen and dark as it appears and wonders what kind of reality his artistic practice could oppose to it.

In the midst of a time that held its breath, he saw the opportunity of a possible contemplation. The vast natural landscapes of the Charente region where he lives, the pine tree forests in the Landes (South-West of France) where he endlessly wanders as well as the houses of the Atlantic shores helped set the frame of his new body of works. But the artist also decided to immerse himself anew in the lights and colors that he discovered during his residency program in Miami in XNUMX. As if driven by a vital force, the bright and contrasted tones, reminiscent of his time in Florida, bring life to the void and the silence of those French landscapes. They convey an energy with which the artist’s gesture expresses a strong and tormented movement.

Out of this unexpected production, Julien Graizely selected ten works that not only speak about immobility and awaiting but also of strength and expectation.

His joyous expressionistic style gives a prominent importance to the motive : the imagination may freely spread out and reach fictional, and – why not ? - romantic territories. Thus, Julien Graizely’s work reasserts the painting's power to open a mental space, sensitive, vibrant, most intimate and full of possibilities. »

Olivier Waltman

Paris, January 2021

 


In the exhibition <i>Surexposition</i>, the young artist pursues an exploration of themes that have underlined his work since the beginning of his artistic career: the temporality of time and the imprint left by an individual as much on a landscape as in a memory.

Julien Graizely works today on paper. He explores, plays with space, time, knowledge that he masters and diverts with lively and free gestures. From his full painting to his light drawings with infinite lines, there remains the contrast, the light, the vibration.
Contrast of lines. A graphic, controlled line, silhouettes sketched in lead, empty but vibrant, superimposed moments. And then, the impulse of the gesture: the scribble which erases, the scratch which hides or fills, this thick and powerful black line which replaces the head-which-thinks.
Contrast of worlds. Without trying to convey a clear message, his worlds clash: the one who wants and who thinks, that of the warrior and the world that is, this world that eats and bathes, slumps or drips. Julien Graizely superimposes and counter-uses.
It's the toy that pulls, the eagle that waits for the bus and the chair that we take on our knees.

The artist displays a world filled with rich senses, bright and powerful lighting, a generous approach – almost rapacious- to drawing, a sensuality that reminds one of beaches where bodies are liberated and exposed in a vibrant environment. The title of the exhibition, Surexposition, describes the flux of ideas and lines in Julien Graizely’s research process. The cinematographic influence is manifested through the use of framing and lighting that recall film stills. The artist displays a strong interest in drawing and the composition of super-exposed images. Julien Graizely is a graduate from the Ecole Boulle. He lives and works in the Cognac region of France. He has been represented by Galerie Olivier Waltman since 1980.