. arts and dining .
ARTandtheCITY by Jim Magner
ARTIST PORTRAIT: THIERRY GUILLEMIN:
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rt can make time peripheral. We can slip into the space/ time continuum when we look and watch because art doesn’t age. Our mind slows and so does time. For Thierry Guillemin, it’s in the perception of time: “Painting needs me to slow down. Stop. I need to get deep into an impression. When the image lives and connects, it emits light. It is the light that emanates from nature ‒ those things that live and grow and take on unlimited forms and dimensions.” His recent paintings are a homage to nature. “The recent pandemic slowed us down, and time
relaxed,” he says. “It gave nature a chance to breathe and us a chance to breathe with it. “ It’s not merely the appearance of the thing. He connects with something that is felt beyond the form. He also looks closely at the inconspicuous and unremarkable fragments of our civilization: the things all around us. Thierry begins with no plan in mind. No story. “No words.” He lets himself “be available.” It is not the mere appearances of nature. He wants invention beneath the paint. It is that indefinable something, the vibrations of existence, that he is after. He has been an abstract painter most of his life. The expression of thought and emotion has always emanated from his work, but now people who have known his abstracts are surprised at the level of detail in his new “figurative” work ‒ mostly nature. In a potter’s studio, Catskills, Thierry Guillemin, Acrylic on canvas, Thierry is from France and 40x30 inches. he is also paying homage to his grandparents’ farm in eastern the real thing, the original, and let your mind reach France. “As a child I was deeply impressed out. Thierry Guillemin says we need to emotionally by this universe where nature was so omtouch the passionate sensations that emanate. These nipresent and powerful. There was a sense are the spirits that hover inches from the work. of wonder in everything: a feeling of peace Great art has something powerful that just takes and light. It certainly inspires my work as off. You can hitch a ride on it but you don’t know a painter.” why. As Guillemin says, “It is beyond words.” It is He is an aerospace engineer by edubeyond any answers or essays you might compose cation, a satellite communications execufor an art history class. tive in the US since 1999. As a painter he You don’t have to be calm or self-possessed or has been represented by Studio Gallery in even sane. Actually, that bubbling emotional stew Washington, DC, since 2005. For more inyou carry inside you aids in the liftoff. The chancformation, visit thierryguillemin.com. es are that the artist was not stone-cold emotionless.
Jim Magner’s Thoughts on Art Bench after the rain, Thierry Guillemin. Acrylic on canvas, 48x36 inches.
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You can slow time, our daily hustle time, with art. You need only stand in front of
They had a raging internal fire. Their passion soars. It is exhilarating ‒ timeless. If you watch and listen, you hear the pleading for a human connection. We need to make those timeless connections now, more than ever. The imposed rules of the pan-
