Maurice Douard born 1951, France.
Nancy, 1965, place Maginot, Maurice was 14 and had just sold his first drawing for 5 francs. The banknote is blue with Victor Hugo lording over it.
" I rush out to buy paints ".
The bourgeois born and bred ugly duckling was quickly shown the door.
He ended up at the Beaux-Arts in Toulouse in 1971, where he distanced himself from the institution. His fame as "teacher of the teachers" lead him up a solitary path. The Warsaw school of chromatology and psycho-chromatology attracted him. He worked on light analysis, colour dynamics, visual effects. Psychiatrists and psychologists backed him. This led him to express these theories with flat tint. He was looking for image deconstruction, but in a random way, favouring the approach by which the subject is fractured by human engineering. He shied away from all automatism linked to any form of machinery / contraptions / appliances / contrivance.
1973 – 1974, mathematical data processing reinforced his global approach, but he kept on going for human sensitivity to the working of computers.
These rigorous researches enable him to coach himself up, and find a frame within which he could mature. They stabilised him.
His choice was more vital than aesthetic.
1973, his first exhibition in La Rochelle with abstract works, research work. He felt an intimate relationship with Cruz Diez, Soto, Vasarely and while his style had not yet been clearly defined, he felt that the abstract concept was by now a dead end.
He compared his call to painting to that of a laboratory. He tried and researched. More accurate than a picture, he was going to deconstruct an individual. The subject will then burst out all over the canvas. This bursting goes through various stages until the viewer experiences a vibratory happening. He acknowledged clinging to his works to avoid wandering.
During his trips to Germany, Austria, Spain … material and psychological help came from intellectuals, but disease will interrupt his journey and research.
In the 1980s, his convalescence over, he contributed to the cinema industry, the ballet and the opera while shedding light on music.
1990, disease struck him again and for 10 years his struggle against the disease will estrange him somewhat from the world, he will put a lot more effort in his inner circle and his atelier.
Out of this distressing experience, a vision and the implementation of his thoughts which are currently on display, will arise. The working drawing of the surface area and the dynamics of the persons reach a more wide ranging sensitivity and discourse.
The requests to exhibit his work in various countries lead to understand that Douard's language, reach all men whatever their culture.
He has been working and exhibiting steadily for 35 years. His painting aside, he produces film sets, large frescoes and sheds light on musicians.
"For a large number of years, Douard, fascinated by light, worked on visual effects, attained a graphical deconstruction. Volumes were blown out and reconstructed, giving vibrations and dynamism to the subject.
Thus, he produces not only the mortal coil, but his characters' aura, charisma and their motion in space. He sees through and beyond corporeal appearance."
Anne-Marie Bergeret, Conservatrice du Musée E. Boudin à Honfleur