Olivier Masmonteil or the unbearable necessity of painting.

Philippe Piguet

The luxury of painting is to take its time and the painter’s luxury is to give his own. For that reason, very few are those who know and want, nowadays, to devote their life to painting. All the more reason if one is aware that dedication to painting is far from being a guarantee of sucess. Painting is demanding exercice wich requires from the painter self-sacrifice and faith, doubts and certainly, enthousiasm and restraint. In present times, so sensitive to any temptations, dying for innovation and eager for immediacy, the choice,of painting might appear courageous. It is no. It is simply human. Is it even a choice ? Nothing is less certain. Painting is singular because it appears to the painter as an obvious necessity. It requires discipline, thinking and care ; in exchange of which painting offers space and time. In one word, a treasure.

Olivier Masmonteil made this choice. He readily confesses that he’s still training as a painter ; that years gone by, one after the other have been steps which founded the almost traditional uniqueness of that practise ; that it is absolutely essential to experiment those in order to achieve painting in its entirety. Does Masmonteil even know that it will be this way until the end ? Does he know that time and space through painting evolve in constant metamorphosis, as the thought is deeply linked with a constant reappraisal ?