(c) Jean-Philippe CHAUVEL 2020
Chauvel's modernity does not stem from a devotion to transient fashions but in the constant application of the contradictions between the accepted use of the territory of lies the pictorial representation amounts to in all its forms, and the tension of attempting to give an account of the truth of emotions
The Venetian series and the urban night scenes so prevalent here entail something starchy, something subtly and coldly threatening that will put the viewer on alert.
Other trajectories of Chauvel: the abstraction.
The word "abstraction" is a convenience of language, since the pictorial act is unique and cannot be reduced by nature to categorizations or taxonomies that would break it out into "genres" subject to different standards of style
The most verist canvas, the setting of the most pretentious of all "topical" paintings joins with the most abstract, the least figurative of demonstrations, even the immaculate whiteness of the virgin canvas.
Chauvel unfailingly compels the forgetful memory of the viewer to compare what is and what has been, less in the chronological sense than as a perception of the has-been of time.
The path from one form of expression to the other is part of the permanent search undertaken by Chauvel.
Adrien SALMIERI is a writer and historian.