French painter,born in 1960. " ...At the start of his career, he used to work mainly with wood since he did not like canvas, finding it too soft and unsuited to scratch, scrape or groove his pictures and, in terms of outline and finish, he always wanted to break away from over-traditional and over-defined painting.
Nowadays, he has found his true style:
Pascal Chôve prefers to manage his painting like constructing a
building. For instance, one of his most important techniques is to make
the center of his paintings very elaborate, almost hyper-realist, and
the further you move from the center, the more ill-defined Chôves
subject becomes. It is as if the painting has faded over time; somewhat
as though he had worked on an old decrepit wall, playing with surfaces,
restoring the center of a timeless fresco, a product of an imaginary
past.
Admiring his remarkable art for the
first time, we are immediately struck by the strict control with which
he expresses what he means. We have the impression of looking at a piece
of fresco that seems to have been cut out of a ruined wall to preserve
it. Occaisionally, we even find underlying pencil sketches, witness to
the artist's secret work.
Chôve's current works are extremely interesting both generally and in terms of form. The base of the paintings is resin on which the artist puts his various materials such as cardboard, netting or tissue. You can see several apparent plans, which vary between hazy and defined, backed by his highly elaborate use of light. In particular, light tends to shine from the high left to illuminate the main subject in the center, whereas the setting or background, on the other hand, is illuminated by a light that comes from the high right side. The beams of light thus cross each other, which gives the whole painting a great and beautiful power.
The themes in his most recent
paintings, the product of many years of work, enable us to uncover
Chôve's personalities amongst which women play an essential part. Some
five years ago, Pascal Chôve work was dominated by landscapes, internal
scenes, or structures sometimes including people. One could say that
today the artist has crossed into the human sphere by depicting living
people in a theatrical manner who move us yet are always serene.
Although he admits to being concerned by the modern aspects of life, he prefers to produce art where serenity is expressed with touching emotion in order to avoid the tragic aspect of life.
Studying his paintings, we also have to admire his technique of garment folds and pleats that give a dynamic rhythm to his paintings.
Pascal Chôve does not try to impart a
message, but rather to show us that between memory and the future he has
managed to build a bridge taking us back to the deepest level of our
soul. Thus, on a level below the simple appearance of the picture, the
artist takes us on a journey with many paths through time."
