Little Fugue, Zürich

This work stands in contrast to the previous one turned towards the past (“Traces”, expo 2009). The idea of the present and of pleasure in the present has imposed itself. Color, sovereign, has make it possible for me to express a whole palette of emotions felt in the instant. Using simple shapes, I let myself be carried by color, its infinite possibilities, its transparencies …

After a deep-dive into her past, allowing an eloquent archeology to reveal “traces” (work presented in the eponymous exhibition of 2009), Renée-Paule Danthine has pursued her path by re-focusing on the present: she proposes an intense slice of life with a series of paintings celebrating a very enjoyable hic et nunc. A whole range of emotions invades the spectator when he or she lets him or herself be carried from one piece to another moving from sparkling tones (yellow, orange, red,..) to others more subdued (dark blue, mauve,..) in assemblages of colors, some thundering, others particularly delicate with subtle transparent effects that make them even lighter.

These works, all of the same size (29 x 21 cm), tightly delineates a grammar of lines, squares, bands, circles, even arabesques, which are never stale. Some draw the viewer towards their center, others only catch the running motive, immobilized in the instant.

In these paintings, it is as if Renée-Paule Danthine had given free range to her pleasure of creating, her love of colors that her use of Japanese paper, which she is so familiar with, can so well restitute.

Nothing cerebral in all this, but a feast. One must only let go and marvel.

M. Saint Siffre