Name Michel Gigon | Role Artist | |
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Michel Gigon (born 1929 in Caen, Calvados) is a French painter, stained-glass window designer. He began his artistic career in 1953.
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Work
Michel Gigon made many exhibitions in France, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and Poland. Many of its paintings are in private collections in France, Switzerland, Germany, Spain.
“It has been said and repeated a painter is a witness, who witnesses in colour, and this makes his evidence attractive. Even when he seems to cheat, whether it be through dandysme, calculation or contempt of his contemporaries, he is still telling the truth in a certain way: it is not him, it is his epoque, that is not frank. But Gigon does not cheat. He is too spiritual to do that. Destiny has placed him in a time of transition where the atomic centrifuge has scattered the last rays of light of impressionism, while little by little, the uncertain lines of a new world are being drawn, still in a state of vapour or project. At this crossroad, Gigon gives witness of continuity of the spirit, and the light in his work comes as if through the folds of a certain which has been half opened onto another world. There is something apocalyptic about his vision of heaven and earth. But is not that the time we are living in ? And the Apocalypse is not an end, it is the beginning of something else, a totally new era, for which Gigon already proposes the indestructible elements of his faith.” André Frossard, Author († 1995).
“Under the absorbing eye of a God always master of the universe, the apocalyptic frescos of Michel Gigon unfold in centripetal swirls which recall, -but in a quasi abstract manner- the dantesque effusions of Signorelli, Michael Ange or Gustave Moreau. They are, however, different from them in that they have nothing pathetic or paroxysmal about them infused as they are by the peaceful anticipation of Christ’s return. What inspired work, fluid and dynamic ; one of the most cosmic and spiritual of our time.” Yann le Pichon, historian of Art.
“Gigon’s pictures are often qualified as catastrophic, even morbid or bewildering. Michel Gigon’s art is resolutely religious and Christian. This fact signifies and implies that a painter can dedicate himself totally to service of his faith. In doing so he does not give up his own personality, as is often insinuated, since it is precisely through it that both the visions and their representations are made possible. Simply putting all his strength, all his torment and all his joy in his work, he esteems that the whole of what he is, feels and thinks can find its unity only in God. God in no case demands the sacrifice of the thousand particularities that constitute an individual, but their subordination to a superior order capable of evaluating them according to their true hierarchy. Having said this -and there again, contrary to what one is accustomed to think, and in the case of artists such a fact is evident- a person does not belong less to his time because hi is a believer. To the contrary even, it is through his characteristics as a man of such or such an epoque that he finds his own way (leading him) to God.” Jil Silberstein author and poet, extract from his monograph of Michel Gigon.
“In present circumstances of stagnation or misleading or uncertitude in painting, your singular work is more than an interrogation, it is a real provocation and should not leave people of good will insensitive.” Extract form François Mathey’s correspondence with Michel Gigon († 1993), Custodian of the Museum of Decorative Arts, Paris
“Michel Gigon galthers hope amongst the brutal humanities. His painting fascinates and shocks. It invites us to displace our senses, to turn them toward a more interior perception. One must follow the rhythm of the beings who vacillate, pitch, struggle and fade away. Follow the wave of the rocks, the clouds and the flames. The light of God guides our steps. There will remain nothing but ourselves in it so that joy may last. So much the worse if it takes more courage to ‘be’ than to please. Art cannot be anecdotic, it should carry its meaning beyond the explicit. In speaking to the soul which burns in us, Michel Gigon invites us to live better. In the lineage of painters inspired by the sacred, Michel Gigon is a contemporary artist outside convention.” Henry Gama.