About Dominique Emard
Magnificent views from above of New York City, Tokyo, Paris, Lisbonne,,.. delicate landscapes of the well known Hollywood sign in Los Angeles: Dominique Emard paints halfway between abstraction and figuration. If at first glance his works seem figurative, the artist nevertheless does not look for details but uses them to enlighten the compositions. Inspired by Bonnard and Rothko (who also never wanted his work to be said "abstract"), his works focus more on colors and vitality in a global composition than in reproducing reality as google earth would do.
Private collections : Germany, Belgium, United-States, France, Netherlands.
Prize : Prix Lefranc-Bourgeois in 2003
Art studies in Orleans (graduated in 1986)
Collective exhibitions in Paris, Lille, Bruxelles,Versailles, Rouen, Arras.
Numerous group shows since 1999 in Orléans, Beaugency, Vendôme, Tulle, Brive…
My "bird eye’s view” paintings are made from webcam or satellite photographies. I’ve always shown interest for geography, maps and atlas.
Quite naturally, I collect pictures on the Web, where they thrive by millions. I use them to define the structure and the tone of my paintings. Then, I interpretate those pictures, I digest their coldness and inhumanity and I highlight their obviousness and paradoxes. From the thickening action of painting and coloring, pictures acquire a materiality they first missed. I also love playing with their scales which enable me to paint small or large, to oppose void and full, to explore the hazy line between asbraction and figuration.
In general, I choose cities or any trace of human civilization.Yet, I don’t select by chance. The picture must have a graphic quality and must be somehow linked to a personal emotion, evoking a text, a film, a piece of music, a memory, a "geographical sensation” or a geopolitical context.