Exposition de Christoff Baron

Exhibition of paintings on wood, listening to audio stories, books etc... I have been working with galleries around the world for the last twenty years, but increasingly I am exhibiting in churches and cathedrals. and cathedrals. I am definitely orienting my my explorations towards sacred art. This genre fell into disuse in the twentieth century following the rejection of Christian spirituality in the West. However, it is still prized by many collectors and museums regularly devote exhibitions to iconography, stained glass and and illumination. I became interested in sacred art for aesthetic and spiritual reasons. Its plastic qualities never cease to move me. I think that the ninth art, the comic strip, was directly inspired by it. The clear line and the coloured flat tints of the famous Belgian school led by Hergé are, in my opinion, nothing more than the lead soldering and variegated glass of stained glass.

The techniques developed in my work are intended to to revisit iconography by exploring the the language of stained glass. The wooden support is industrial, pallet boards or scaffolding planks. These used boards, by no means intended for ornamentation, bear the stigma of our consumer society. of our consumer society. If pallets carry all our objects and food, the plank is used to build the ultimate good, the house. These roughly hewn woods, handled without consideration, are the most discredited.

They litter the ditches and pavements, and often rot there while waiting waiting to be discarded. I keep most of the traces left by the masons and storekeepers. I partially sand the richly patinated wood to recover the colour of the pine, close to that of the skin. The clothes of the characters take up the writing of the stained glass windows, colours and lead cords. The use of coloured varnish gives a transparency a transparency that evokes stained glass. In addition to the magnificence of the style, sacred art carries, like comics a narrative. It illustrates the Book, telling illiterate people a text to which they do not have access. If education today allows everyone to to decipher words, the West's break with Christian spirituality and especially with the political figure of Christ has weakened the cognitive, cultural and social and social foundation of our countries, as each election reminds us.

"The model of Christ inspires me: he was brilliant, sensitive generous and rebellious."