Jean MAUFAY

Born in 1927

Art(s) : Painting.
Mouvement(s) : Contemporary.

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Contact

78 Boulevard du Président Félix Faure
76600 Le Havre

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Criticism

The talent of a great artist derives its essence from the personification of their energy, and from their sensorial and spiritual capacity to project the perfect perception of an element, theme, nuance, note or sensation through the unconscious phenomenon of their thought. It is in this sense that Jean Maufay reveals his artwork’s supremacy and entity, plunging the imaginary results of chance and his elevated vision of reality into an undulating pictorial substance, revealing almost carnal variations that are in turn chromatic, celestial and flamboyant. This contemplative and humanist artist lives in Le Havre and was born on 12th September 1927 in Paris. After graduating from the Ecole Boulle in 1945 and then the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he was nominated professor of painting at the Ecole Régionale des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre in 1958 following an entrance exam. This abstract impressionist, whose work represents over 55 years of creation, conveys the imminent nature of emotion and offers a substantive depiction of the instantaneous quality of every sensation and feeling. This is because Jean Maufay’s painting is imbued with intelligence, devotion, symbolism, silence, the language of the senses, music, mythology and rationality. His technique represents an eruption of colours, where contrasts, shapes and materials are blended only to be reborn again in a scattering of light, much like a protective and benevolent bubble around a frozen moment in the immensity of eternity. The same is true of all the painter’s pieces. Whether working on canvas or wood, light appears as transcending and mysterious. As a perfectionist, the artist does not take to the canvas until after completing numerous sketches. As he creates, these original drawings then lead him back towards the intensity of the primary emotion. There is no rift between the real and the imaginary for Jean Maufay. He covets and exploits every possibility in worlds where the imperceptible obeys the law of his visual and sensorial perspicacity. And so the artist’s eye perceives that which escapes us, revealing his pleasure in hiding objects within the canvas, and which the observer will only discover after an attentive study. Take his “Topologies” for example, or his Ordnance Survey maps or “Errances imaginaires” (“Imaginary Wanderings”), in which metaphysical and phantasmagorical transformations drip with symbols, and letters blend into the paint. Here, the artist’s imagination reaches new heights of subtlety and chromatic perfection. Poetic in terms of their elegance and gentleness, Jean Maufay’s mother and child paintings represent, through their shimmering colours, a halo of light that is serenely moving, reminding us of the heart’s purity and felicity. And happiness reaches its climax, in the artist’s mind, when he conveys his passion for music on canvas, a passion passed on from his wife, who was a great pianist. There, a vibrato stirs in the heart of the painting and explodes into a torrent of vigorous colours, which are as though dazzled by the sensuality and radiance emanating from the music. We too are dazzled as we contemplate his landscapes and seascapes, where sumptuous sunsets reveal a light that the artist holds in his hands like gold dust. In the few compositions that pay tribute to Egypt, where he transposes footprints left in the sand by tourists from all over the world, the artist again reveals, above and beyond these footprints, an ever so poetic perception of symbols of hope and brotherhood. Jean Maufay’s work represents a life of poetry, love and contemplation, and is about humanity, man’s meditation and the importance of capturing the present moment. Grasping Jean Maufay’s painting is an extraordinary attempt to enter eternity without becoming lost oneself.

Exhibitions

Du 05/02/2016 au 02/03/2016 : LE HAVRE : EXPOSITION COLLECTIVE "PEINTURE A L'EAU" A LA GALERIE HAMON

Du 08/01/2016 au 03/02/2016 : LE HAVRE : EXPOSITION JEAN MAUFAY A LA GALERIE HAMON

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