jean-michel raczinski

abstract

In my eyes, the terms "abstract", "abstraction", "abstract painting" have little meaning when it comes to painting laid on a support: the canvas, the paper, the object that hosts the painting is by nature concrete, real, and palpable.

“What does the bottle matter, as much as the drunkenness?”

The feelings, the emotions, the thoughts that painting can generate in our hearts, our souls, our minds are much bigger than the painting itself.

Certainly, but do not neglect the impact of the support on the perception of what we call abstract.

And then, in the forms that I paint, there are people, animals, plants, signs, numbers or, at the very least, figures that can be interpreted as such.

So, abstract painting? Is it really relevant?

In my eyes, the true abstraction is in the numbers, or better still, the laws, the principles, the theorems which govern them.

Painting is sometimes a beautiful springboard to these marvelous universes.

emotions

Paraphrasing Sacha Guitry, I would gladly say that I am against emotions, all against.

I do not consider the search for emotion as an artistic goal in itself.

Obviously, for many artists, visual artists as well as musicians, actors and other acrobats, generating emotions in their audience is a great success, if not a great goal.

And artistic activity itself generates such intense emotions that many artists, just like athletes and so many others, seek this stress and these adrenaline rushes to such an extent that these ephemeral pleasures become ultimately dreadful drugs. And after all, shouldn't I plead guilty sometimes, again?

Today, I don't see the search for emotion as a culmination but rather as an intermediate step, a half-open door to something else, to a different state, certainly superior. I don’t know how to define or qualify this secret and multiple state, much more complex and complete than a purely intellectual concept.

Even more, emotion seems to me more and more like a brake on this quest for the beyond.

Its forms are multiple, variable, uncontrollable, random over time and depending on the person, not easy to escape.

Painting turns out to be the best answer to these questions that are beyond me.

magic squares

The beauty of magic squares is also found and discovered in their numerical structure.

At first glance, the numbers seem randomly scattered, by chance.

However, they radiate and irradiate us with their own energies, individually but also in their totality.

Individually, each number speaks to us in its own way. We hear it, we see it, and we feel it according to our history, our experience, our sensitivity, our relationship to numbers.

Together, these energies add up and they can neutralize as well as they can amplify each other. And this is where their structure plays its all role.

Let us take the example of the magic square of order 6: it is made up of the first 36 numbers (from 1 to 36) distributed over 6 rows and 6 columns so that the sums of the numbers of each row and each column and of the two diagonals are identical. This sum is called the magic constant; it is a kind of signature of the square. For the square of order 6, it is 111.

There are many methods to generate distributions of numbers that make a square magic, including from numbers other than the first 36, for example with only even numbers or only odd numbers.

First of all, the quality of the signs, numbers in this case, their shapes, colors, materials and the meaning that we want to give them, influence our perception. Then, obviously, a square of order 5, therefore containing 25 signs, does not work visually in the same way as a square of order 6 with its 36 signs: geometry obliges! But, even more, the organization of these signs between them brings another dimension, another geometry, another beauty. The magic constant that connects the rows, columns and diagonals of the magic square gives it a coherence and power similar to that of a laser beam compared to diffuse ambient light.

Let's get out of the square, let's escape from the visible to consider this power of another order, a sort of aura which envelops the painting, which we perceive and which must act in one way or another. It is undoubtedly these powers that the traditions invoked by using magic squares as talismans.

sprint

I like to paint as one runs the 100 meters.

Months, years of preparation and training.

Just before the race: identification, preparation, concentration.

During the race, we don't think, we don't have time. The mind gives way to instinct, which takes back (takes?) its full place.

The power must be expressed directly. It is necessary to release the energies, all the energies.

suggestion

A painting is a suggestion: to make visible.

toothpaste

For me, the most painful thing with painting is when, after a full day, you still have to open a tube of toothpaste.