Michel Hivert

Born in 1960, I showed my interest in drawing at an early age. At the age of 14, I was taking private lessons in this field, and it was quite naturally in 1977 that I went to a school of arts and graphic industries (Estienne school). For many years I continued to paint and draw. Then very quickly, I joined the school of drawing / painting directed by Jean Paul Maillot in Solesmes. This meeting was decisive for me, both in the discovery and learning of art and in the encounters and exchanges that can be created within a group. I also had the chance to participate in a one-week internship led by Christoff Debusschère (official naval painter) at the Glandier in Sologne. Little by little I discovered that the art of figurative painting obeys unavoidable rules. The first of these rules is a good mastery of drawing, and it can only be obtained, in my opinion, through observation and regular work. The choice of format, composition, the order of values and colours as well as the rhythms are all basic steps essential to the creation of a work. However, their applications are not enough, because technology alone is not synonymous with success, it only makes it possible to reproduce a subject faithfully. The painter is not there to reproduce a reality (however beautiful it may be), his approach will be to use it, to transpose it, in order to obtain a personal interpretation. Sentiment and emotion have as much or more space in the realization of the painting and it is often difficult to express them through a pencil stroke or a brush stroke. With each new project, this challenge challenges us and sometimes puts us in doubt, because in this field, nothing is ever acquired. Each experience is a battle that requires a lot of energy and concentration, a succession of choices and sacrifices, happiness and discouragement, but without these discoveries and uncertainties, painting would not, in my opinion, be an art. As in many fields, work and mastery allow access to greater freedom, which in turn will promote creation. To all this we must add sensitivity, feeling, emotion, poetry and of course a good dose of audacity and humility. Today, my work is situated in the search for abstraction in the figurative, but whether it is for a still life, a landscape or a portrait, I always strive to enhance the beauty of the subject. For this I rely on the subtle interplay of light and shadows. In this register I am not a precursor, painters have always used this source of inspiration, but once again, each approach is different, each canvas is an adventure and each artist has his own writing, his own approach and his own interpretation. ( You don’t make a work, you get it. ( Phillipe Lejeune) ( "The first merit of a painting is to be a feast for the eye. ( Eugène Delacroix)