Pamphyle

Today was the vernissage of our neighbour Pamphyle's exhibition of paintings. He bought a dilapidated maison de maître in the village three years ago, and has been gradually renovating it since.

He has a unique style, involving applying layers of paint and then scraping bits off. For this project, Entre nos murs, he took photos of various local people, and photos of walls and street furniture (largely manhole covers and grates). He had the photos of walls and metalwork printed onto canvas and then painted over them. The results are idiosyncratic but very pleasing -- I think everyone sees something different in them.

The mairie and the cave coopérative were happy to provide facilities to house the exhibition, but were shocked when he flatly refused to hang his paintings in the modern, soulless salle des fêtes. His paintings are big, many of them a metre or so across, so he needed a large space. He looked around the village and picked a huge barn used for storing wine, in both vats and bottles. The pallets of bottles provided a handy surface for hanging art works. The lighting, a few harsh spotlights,. made it difficult to take photos but I did my best! I chose this photo to convey the environment rather than the artworks themselves.

I backblipped yesterday for your listening pleasure.