Le Torero mort

In the building were my studio is, a neighbour artist below my floor sadly passed away.
He was a painter and regularly gave classes to students, getting simultaneously older like him.
Emptying his studio, his wife kindly piled up towers of art books for us, other artists of the building, to pick up some of our interest.

I borrowed ‘Manet’. Opening it on my studio table, the book opened to the double page of ‘Le Torero mort’.
A typed written lose page was in the back of the book, listing patiently all painting styles of the last 150 years.
Like a endlessly turning wheel, inventing itself on an on. A stain in the form of a gentle fantastic monster stands in the margin.

This page spontaneously landed on the bust of the torero. The sun was shining in the studio.
At once I became aware of the cast shadow from my wooden window. I remembered my Cathédrales.
The image under my eyes was calling to existence.

Le Torero mort is an homage to all the dead painters and an homage to the Art of Painting, forever dead and reborn.