Patrice Naturel Interview — Continuous Revelations

I am excited to share the work of Patrice Naturel with you.

He recently had a show open in Langeais, France. Patrice asked friends to send him writings about his work for the show and so I wrote the following paragraph for him:

When I contemplate the work of Patrice Naturel, when I try to find the words to put to the feelings his paintings evoke in me, I come to compassion. I see evidence of compassion for what we do to one another, I see compassion for how the love we should be showing one another suffers. I also see an appreciation for the small kindnesses which are the most important of things, a compassion which simultaneously speaks to our unity and fragmentation. There is also whimsical joy in his paintings and there are lessons to be found both in his spontaneity of technique and his choices of subject matter. Most of those lessons involve smiling.

It seemed fitting to share as an introduction to our correspondence.

PN:

I live in Tours (250 kilometers from Paris) with my wife and my eighteen years old son...lost in an old farm.

My wife is a teacher and I am working in a house for old people. Before, I was a technical dentist for thirty years.

So let's start at the beginning....in 1991 when I first tried to paint.

It was in a museum dedicated to Maurice Estève (a French painter). I was so impressed by what I saw, that I needed to paint by myself.

My first paintings were very inspired by Estève, but little by little I managed to find my own universe.

One day, not on purpose, I dropped some watercolor on the floor which had been covered with a plastic pellicule.

The day after, l discovered very interesting forms and colours printed on the floor.

So I have tried to reproduce the same effects on a canvas.

I had found a new technic quite interesting for me, it produced tridimensional effects without thickness.

I have realised many abstract paintings with this technic from 1992-2005.

In 1996, I had my first exhibition in a Parisian gallery near the Beaubourg Muséum.

They were abstract paintings only with many colours and mixed forms.

People were interested, really, by the incredible effects produced on the canvas.

But I needed to get out of this technic.

It was important for me to incorporate human elements.

The tissue which had wrapped Jesus Christ (or a man supposed to be him), this subject had been a source of inspiration for ten years..

Ghost writing was the name of one of the first exhibitions in "Touraine" (the region where I live now).

In 2006, someone told me that my paintings were quite intellectual. I was annoyed with this remark because it didn't represent me at all. So in 2006, I decided to draw cows!

The idea was to use a figurative element with an abstract universe.

Liberate the cows from their fields!

In 2007, I used the same principle with "orange and grey people".

For example: a man sat down on a chair ,reading a book, surrounded by abstract elements.

I am still using this way to create.

Another important thing to be precise about: I don't have the control on all the abstract effects in my paintings and it must remain like that!

Next I will talk about "the links" ,a project which lasted three years from 2011 to 2014....and the project was born in 2010.

I was impressed by an exhibition I saw with Caroline in Brittany.

The artist asked friends to have a correspondence with him and he used what people sent to him in his work.

The subject of my paintings was the link between Jesus Christ and people, humanity.

So I have asked friends to draw me contemporary representations of the human only…

I used le suaire de Turin, Le linceul du Christ and I mixed with the images I received.

The results were sometimes strange.... and surprising.

CR:

These are beautiful.

Why did you want to focus on the relationship between Jesus and humanity? Can I ask about your own relationship with the idea of Jesus? (I am an extremely open person in this regard and you can answer this, or not, in any fashion you choose).

PN:

For me, a way to be close to Jesus Christ is to be close to people.

Love people, make our relation with Jesus more concrete.

CR:

Wonderfully stated.

PN:

I like the idea to represent Jesus with us and in contemporary clothes.

I have been trying to take off the dust in our ways to paint the Christ!

"The links" have also been the opportunity for me to be confronted with other stuff that wasn't mine.

It has been a turn in my paintings.

So, after this experience, I have made some workshops with others.

The first took place in the church with parishes I had met.

The aim for them had been to illustrate a sentence of the bible with my technic.

For the second one, with the same "team" we have realised a big cross with a Christ painted on wood.

In 2015 a Spanish friend of mine asked me if I would be able to illustrate.....a famous poet Antonio Machado. I took off two or three words of each poem and built thirty paintings with that.

The exhibition was in Collioure (where Machado died).

In 2018, I have realised exhibition and performances outside, on the walls of some villages.

"The art of falling" for example:

The last one is more recent and smaller.

Next, I will start the narrative of my collaboration with Edwige Godbert.

CR:

I wanted to ask you, what motivates you to create art?

PN:

The project with Edwige (it is her first name) will probably answer your last question;

In January, we both worked in an EHPAD (place for aged people) and I asked Edwige if she would like to participate on one of my paintings.

She's younger than me (25 years younger), she doesn't believe in God at all, and she never had experience of any exhibition.

When I am searching ideas to build a painting,

It's often a way for me to learn things about myself and about others.

And also the plaisir to find, to discover, to test new paths.....

The collaboration with Edwige opened new horizons; some more precisions on this particular project:

Two years ago, I asked Edwige to participate on a canvas.

She would have represented a few traces with paintbrush and I would have recovered it with the Christ's cross.

A real spiritual project.

But Edwige was not satisfied with that.

Nevertheless, she was touched by my proposition .

So she asked me to build a canvas together. That's what we have done!

We were happy with the results! Not because it was the best painting in the world, but most of all, we could see our own differences on the canvas.

CR:

Patrice, you can see not only differences but similarities. I like this painting a lot, it communicates so much.

We are coming up to the present! What have you been working on these days? (I have a few more questions too!).

PN:

Yes I am still working in my job ( for aged people) and with paintings.

I have realised in the last six months, maybe forty canvases!

I can build a painting in two days.

With Edwige, we managed to réalisé one in 8 hours.

It was the second time for us to paint together (I mean side by side, in my house).

Normally, l start the canvas in my workshop and she answers me in her's.

CR:

What is your workshop like? Is it on the old farm where you live? I am curious, have you lived there for your whole artistic career so far? If not, did changing the space you make your paintings change or influence your creative process any? My music shifts about depending on the environment I make it in.

PN:

My workshop looks like an ancient house, like a stable, look at this:

CR:

Oh, that is really cool. How old is your farmhouse?

PN:

1882....

In fact, there were 2 buildings, one for the cows (my workshop now)

and another just near where we live.

To be completely honest,I don't often create in my workshop, it's a place dedicated to exhibition and a place where I enter to pick up things or to put some big canvas.

I can paint everywhere in my house except my workshop.

With Edwige, three times, we chose the living room near the fire to réalisé our last paintings...

Outside, also. It is nice to paint outside.

It's a way to feel good but it doesn't influence my paintings, not directly.

The contact with friends and people influence my paintings , I am sure of that point.

CR:

Patrice, where do you think your art is taking you next? What are you working on, or planning to work on, in the future?

PN:

I will continue to represent people,to represent strange or funny situations.

You can see on instagram that my paintings are always changing.

To go in several directions is a part of me and it probably won't change.

Concretely, we have three exhibitions with Edwige with the project "Edwige and Patrice's four hands".

In Langeais I will complete with 20 paintings of my own work( big frames) which will be presented in the same place.

I am working on "God is taking the tube".

You can see "Jesus is playing tennis" on Instagram.

It's seems strange but finally it is the same theme compare to "the links";

To represent God as if he was living with us.....

CR:

I think that is a necessary theme these days. Completely appropriate!

Art reminds us in ways that words cannot. It speaks on a different level.

Are there any artists working right now (aside from those you have mentioned) who people should check out? People who you think deserve more recognition, whose work may be similar to yours or whose work you pay particular attention to?

PN:

I like Roberto Combas. Cy twombly, Basquiat...

And with the contemporary paintings, some friends of mine, but they are not famous: Jean Michel Salaun, Benoît Dechelle, Claudine Dumaille.

I think my paintings don't belong to any movement.

Generally, what I like most is totally different from my own work.

CR:

That makes sense. And I would rather tell people about artists who aren't famous... there is an integrity to making art for art's sake, I think.

Patrice, when people talk to you about your art, is there anything which no one notices or asks you that you wish they might? Or, if you were getting close to finishing up our interview, what questions would you ask if you were me?

PN:

Funny question, I like it.

So, if I were you, I would have asked two last questions:

What is the most important thing in the process of a réalisation, the technic, the colours, the subject or all the little things uncontrolled?

For me, the most important thing in the process it's all the little things uncontrolled.

That's why I like painting with Edwige because she is different and it adds something weird and uncontrolled to our work.

But even in my own work, it is better when I go in a direction I didn't expect....

And, it's not a question but a remark:

People who like my paintings are often attached to the beautiful colours and for me it's not essential....

CR:

In my own work, in my pictures and my music and even in my scattered and erratic attempts to write, I tend to work in improvised layers. There is some control, but the delight is in the unexpected relations which arise between layers of creation. It can be tension, it can be harmony, it can be the realization of a truth I did not see before about whatever passion which drove my creation in the first place. I think I can relate to what you are saying.

Thank you so much for taking so much time to discuss things with me.

PN:

It was a plaisir for me to share my passion.

Many thanks to Patrice for all of his time and his work.

If you want to know more about Patrice, here is his website (which has both French and English as options):

https://patricenaturel.fr/

You should also follow him on Instagram, where he regularly posts work. You can find him @patricenaturel

Support and enjoy him in what ever ways you can. You can reach him via Instagram or his website.