AT THE FONTVIEILLE WORKSHOP 1957-1968: from "Trigonometric Venus" to a frigid abstraction
The Trigonometric Venus - The Way of the Cross (St Julien d'Arles Church)
In 1958, during a very short period, a first series of paintings was intended, through a continuous drawing, without flaw or repentance , a reading by Bernard Buffet. These large compositions of female characters develop a tangle of dry straight lines, forming acute angles, triangles, rectangles, squares, circles. These strange creatures, Guy Renne will baptize them Trigonometric Venus . Subsequently he will apply this conception to still lifes.
In the 60s, influenced among other contemporaries by Poliakov and especially Nicolas De Staël, he painted abstract works: numerous, groping and difficult searches between lyrical abstraction and geometric rigor. Trends revealing his deep nature, one is expressed in his taste for architecture, the other in his love for the music which he will practice, by the violin, until the end of his life. He finally adopts a resolutely geometric approach, stripped down, under the influence of Zen, by a desire to reject previous influences and by a spiritual quest.
Guy Renne now uses a lighter and wider palette, smooth solids, for richer and thicker materials. Sometimes a contained lyricism invests his Visions of ports and his still lifes.
Landscapes, Still lifes, Figures
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Abstractions
Guy Renne will find multiple sources of inspiration, notably in his "Abstract" period, where he will concretize this close link between painting and music, by inviting during the year 64, a modern jazz trio (Jean-Luc Parodi ( P), Max Hediguer (Cb), Vincent Séno (B)) to come and live in his workshop in Fontvieille. No wonder, Guy Renne is himself a musician.
During rehearsals, he will paint "Live" in direct catch with rhythmic, improvised and exploded music, like the many works that will be born from these artistic "feasts".
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