For Patrick Rouzière, the Canal du Midi is more than just an exceptional work of art: it has been an inexhaustible source of inspiration and a model for his paintings for many years.
So, naturally, he wanted to associate his watercolors depicting the Canal du Midi with the replanting project, with the aim of drawing the attention of a wide audience to the need to support the patronage mission of VNF (Voies Navigables de France) in favor of this project.
Patrice Rouzière, an artist from Toulouse, studied at the Ecole Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (1982-1986).
His musician friends encouraged him to work during orchestra rehearsals. His works on music, which he developed over some twenty years, are pictorial scores integrating the calligraphic aspect of musical writing with visual and sonic sensations.
On his return to Toulouse, he turned to the landscapes of his region and the various countries he discovered on his travels.
His energetic painting reflects a feeling of impatience and overly intense joy, a painting of the body. It reflects a marked interest in the abundance and accumulation of pictorial matter, where stains of color and successive, vigorous impastos directly give structure to the painting.
The excess thicknesses maintain a certain freshness in the canvas, as well as the perpetual movement of color, which appears to be still in fusion or in the process of becoming.
Shapes are furiously jostled, while sculpted light occasionally offers a moment of tranquility in a corner of the sky.
A dialogue is established between the figurative and the abstract, tilting to one side or the other to translate the sensation of the landscape without stopping at its representation.
> Exhibition on view during Museum opening hours
> September – October: Tuesday to Saturday, 10:00 am to 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm to 5:30 pm
> November – December: Tuesday to Saturday, 09:30 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00
> Closed: Sundays and Mondays (except 1st Sunday of the month)
