The 18 paintings of the 2021 exhibition
Numbers and Lights
du 13 au 23 décembre 2021
"Espace 7," 7 rue Saint-Sabin 75011 Paris-Bastille
Fidèle à ma double formation d'ingénieur et de peintre, j'ai exploré en 2021 l'univers magique des nombres pour les transformer en tableaux.
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Les nombres, les équations et les théorèmes deviennent sur dix-huit toiles des formes, des matières et des couleurs.
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Pythagore, "les 400 coups", "les 1001 nuits"... je me suis amusé avec tout ce qui touche aux nombres pour en faire des sources d'inspiration.
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The 400 blows
acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm
In 1621 the Catholic armies of Louis XIII besieged the Huguenot fortress of Montauban but the city, well prepared, did not give in.
Following the advice of a mage, the king simultaneously fired his 400 cannons to terrify the besieged. This had no effect and the Montalbanais celebrated the victory for several days. Thus was born the 400 blows festival ("Fête des 400 coups") which is still celebrated today in Montauban.
The steeple of the Saint-Jacques church still bears the traces of two cannonballs and, above its gate, is a large perfectly preserved mosaic.
My 4 seasons
acrylic on canvas 46 x 38 cm
Daffodils were blooming in my Grandfather's garden.
We hid in the shade of huge sunflowers.
The piles of dead leaves exploded under our feet.
Holly branches enlivened our midnight masses.
Then I traveled a lot
The 7 wonders
of the world
acrylic on canvas 80 x 80 cm
Petra, Giza, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall of China… what would the wonders of the world be without colors? They would be invisible!
This painting could have been called "the 7 colors of the world".
Forms are also important.
The yellow shines and sparkles, it is sharp like a triangle. Blue is round like the Earth, like the blue planet. Red is bright and efficient. It is well organized. It is square.
Between these three primary colors are the intermediate colors, which also have their own shapes:
the intermediate forms.
Imaginary numbers
acrylic on canvas 46 x 38 cm
In mathematical language, imaginary numbers are written in the form ix, where i is the square root of -1 and x any number.
In everyday language, imaginary numbers are… numbers that we imagine.
I chose this second approach.
However, I do not give up mathematics since the addition shown on the painting is correct. We still have to guess why! A clue? ... the number 11.
This is not my most colorful painting, but it is certainly the most "complex".
The 6th sense
acrylic on canvas 46 x 61 cm
"Each new disappearance turns our hearts into lace
But time goes by and the sharp pains turn pastel
This time which, for once, is a real ally
Each hour spent is an ointment, it will take thousands "
Extract from "Nos absents" by Fabien Marsaud, alias "Grand Corps Malade".
With our 5 senses we perceive the world ... completely or partially?
If we had a 6th sense, could we perceive other beings? Could we see our dear departed again?
Golden ratio and golden colors
acrylic on canvas 38 x 61 cm
This painting has the proportions of the golden ratio because, if we isolate the large yellow square, the remaining rectangle has the same proportions as the painting as a whole. By repeating the operation, the initial shape is cut into smaller and smaller squares, until it converges on a point called, during the Renaissance, "the eye of God". It is the white point on the board at the intersection of the two diagonals.
You can draw a spiral that goes through the corners of the squares and cover it with the colors of the rainbow. At the intersection between the spiral and the two diagonals we find 6 colors. Why not call them "the colors of gold"? They are used here, in lighter shade, to color the squares.
Pythagoras 3-4-5
acrylic on canvas 81 x 60 cm
Pythagoras… good memories of college?
It's amazing that you can construct a right triangle with numbers as simple as 3, 4, and 5. This is the little yellow triangle on the painting. 3 is the base, 4 is the height of the adjacent square, 5 is the height of the next square, etc. we thus form an arithmetic sequence. Another square of sides 5 rests on the hypotenuse of the triangle. By the play of intersections between the diagonals and the verticals, we build a geometric sequence of progression seven thirds…
Good memories of high school?
Waves and Curves
oil on canvas 81 x 60 cm
Unlike most of my paintings, there is no square, rectangle, or even straight line here.
There are only ellipses, curves and waves in search of harmony.
I have fond memories of my "Math Spé" teacher who said:
“When a curve is ugly, it is certainly false; when it is beautiful it has every chance of being correct”.
The 1001 nights
acrylic on canvas 38 x 46 cm
This mosaic contains 1001 elements. However, the divisors of 1001 are 7, 11, 13, 77, 91 and 143.
Multiplying them together gives 1001, for example
13 x 77 or 11 x 91… but the mosaic has more than 11 or 13 elements, even on its small side. Yet there are 1001 elements… mystery!
The painting also represents 3 tales from the famous Persian book. For that the mystery is less thick!
3 and a half octaves
oil on canvas 46 x 61 cm
Music and mathematics go hand in hand, but what about painting?
How to translate music into color? Here is an attempt, the beginning of a Mazurka by Scriabin, a passage that covers 3 and a half octaves precisely.
Why Scriabin? Because, like other musicians, he sought to associate musical notes and colors.
Can painting provide the same emotions as music?
This will be the theme of my next exhibition!
2 times 3 movements
At the dawn of the 1st day
acrylic on round canvas Ø 40 cm
"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
(Genesis 1: 1-3)
acrylic on canvas 60 x 81 cm
"2 temps 3 mouvements" in French, is a rhythmic expression which evokes a well paced music.
"2 times" like the tempo of Jean-Philippe Rameau's piece "Les Sauvages", the first two measures of which appear in the center of the painting.
"3 movements" illustrated by the movements of the fingers, hands and arms of the represented instrumentalists.
Born on November 1, 2020
acrylic on round canvas Ø 40 cm
This painting is an algorithm that transforms any date of our century, or the previous one, into two visual elements. They are at the center of the table. On the outskirts are ... clues!
In computer science you need 32 bits to encode a date, here 2 visual elements are enough ... a track to multiply the power of our computers?
Order the painting of your birthday and get 50% off if you find the algorithm!
One thousand nine hundred and forty
Acrylic on canvas 120 x 80 cm
From June 22, 1940 and for exactly one year, Churchill and the British were alone against the Nazis.
Europe was either defeated or enslaved. The USSR signed a pact with Germany. America did not go to war.
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I deeply admire Winston Churchill.
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This painting is also the illustration of his famous quote:
“Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that matters."
The 4 worlds
oil on canvas 60 x 81 cm
On the left there is only one line: the world has 1 dimension.
We draw two white lines and the world has 2 dimensions, as ants would see it on a huge flat surface.
Then we draw 4 white lines from the 4 angles of the square and the world acquires its 3rd dimension. This is our world.
We can continue like this and draw 8 lines from the 8 corners of the cube. This figure which only exists in a 4-dimensional world is called in mathematics a hyper-cube.
Our universe may have 4 dimensions but we only perceive 3. Beings may live in this 4th dimension which is inaccessible to us. Could these be our dear departed? Do they sometimes stealthily come into our cube? Do we see them then?
Fibonacci sequences
acrylic on canvas 81 x 60 cm
Une identité remarquable (binomial cube)
acrylic on canvas 46 x 38 cm
Mathematics, with the exception of one of its branches, geometry, can do without drawing.
Most often, the drawing is just used to visualize totally abstract notions in order to better understand them.
Drawing can also be a way of expressing the beauty of mathematics. Particularly when the vocabulary is also beautiful, as in the French expression “identité remarquable”.
Of course, a remarkable setting was needed here... an island in the Indian Ocean!
The Fibonacci sequence (13th century Italian mathematician) is a sequence of integers in which each term is the sum of the two terms that precede it. We thus find 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, etc.
These are the dimensions of the squares and rectangles on the painting.
Fibonacci numbers often appear in nature: in the spirals in the heart of sunflowers, in the ordering of the scales of pine cones or in the number of petals of daisies.
Goldbach's conjecture
Acrylic on canvas 120 x 80 cm
It is rare in mathematics that an assertion always turns out to be correct when it has never been proved.
The case of Goldbach's conjecture is all the more striking because it appears simple:
"Any even number can be written as the sum of two prime numbers"
As far as computers can go, this assertion holds true. Yet no mathematician has been able to demonstrate that it is always true.
