Pierre Soulages - Peinture 202 x 159 cm, 28 octobre 2013

The French painter Pierre Soulages counts as one of the most important artists of the post-war period and is a leading exponent of Art Informel. Galerie Thomas is pleased to present an outstanding and impressive example of the artist’s “ultra-black” paintings.

Since 1979, Soulages’s oeuvre revolves around the concept of the "outrenoir", meaning "beyond black". In his mostly monochrome paintings, Soulages treats the black colour in different ways, creating contrasting, sometimes flat, sometimes violently relief-like surfaces that always reflect the light differently. These works go beyond the black of their materiality and are actually paintings of light, which, depending on the light and external influences, but also depending on the inner disposition of the viewer, can convey the sensory impression of other colours.

Soulages typically titles his works with the dimensions and the exact date of creation. This has a diary-like quality, and in fact every work is the reproduction of the light and the mood, the whole atmosphere of the day of its creation, while at the same time offering up a space for the viewer's own individual perception.