17M6G-2017

Alain Clément is a French abstract painter whose works grow out of a lifelong exploration of color, lines, curves, physicality and space.  Clément taught at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier from 1970 until 1977. He began teaching at the Ecole Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Nîmes in 1977, and was headmaster of the school from 1985 until 1990. He lives and works in Nîmes, southern France. Alain Clément’s practice is rooted in an exploration of color: sometimes color as volume, sometimes color as a lyrical expression of gesture, sometimes color as a graphic presence—always color as an element that is endowed with multiple meanings.   His work fluctuates between painting and sculpture, a back and forth that both results from, and contributes to, an ongoing exchange of ideas.  The medium of painting offers Clément an arena in which gestural freedom, physicality, experimentation and immediacy can lead to the development of curved, graphic expressions of color and line, which may then be simplified and extended further into space as sculptural forms.  Whether they manifest on a two-dimensional plane in a free and physical way, like a dance, or as a three-dimensional volume, intricately planned, his compositions can be understood in terms of the visual relationships they express between color and space. Coming of age as an artist in France in the 1960s, he was friends with members of the Supports/Surfaces movement. Though still not widely understood outside of France, this loosely defined group had in common a trust that painting was not yet exhausted, and could in fact be limitlessly expressed through simplicity and experimentation.  Throughout his career, Clément has continually explored the lyrical potential his mediums contain. He gives voice to an inexhaustible world of energy, color and space through his paintings and sculptures. Each of his works grows out of, and serves as a reminder of, the renewal he has found in the dialogue between experimentation and discovery.