Franck Chalendard

Franck Chalendard was born in Haute-Loire, France in 1966 and currently resides in St. Etienne where he studied at the Beaux-Arts Institute of Fine Art. As an artist, he works primarily with salvaged wood or sheets of compressed cardboard, which he cuts into regular, simple shapes such as squares and rectangles, each measuring a few dozen centimeters. Chalendard then coats and paints these surfaces with oils, applying very liquid colors in mists and glazes, sometimes using opaque or transparent, matte or glossy colors. The result is a chart of color that is uniquely his own, with strange, hard-to-pinpoint tones that combine strongly-stated color with a diaphanous quality, creating a tense but not brutal encounter.

Chalendard then arranges these blocks on the wall to form one picture, using fine tacks to fit the surfaces together without tacking them down. This creates barely-visible interstices that give the finished work a shaky aspect. He sometimes superimposes one block on another in a few places to introduce a color difference, modify a little, and correct the balance or imbalance of the work as a whole, resulting in an uneven surface that further contributes to the interplay of the piece. The final painting is achieved through the coexistence of these surfaces, which create an unstable, fleeting element that is strongly present.

Chalendard's paintings are composite pictures that resemble geometric constructions, similar to those of enlarged constructivist paintings. However, they give a simultaneous feeling of nuance, subtleness, and fragility, while being solid and composed, yet delicate, skew-whiff, and clashing. His work has a constructivism that is able to make way for the visual vibration brought by any great painting.

It should be noted that while describing Franck Chalendard's work process, the intention is not to categorize him in any particular art process or concept. Rather, the aim is to report on the captivating visual vibration of his paintings.