Hervé Carriou, born in Brittany, has been painting for about twenty years. He lives in Paris. At first he studied watercolour and the technique of old-fashioned oil painting. He has been painting mainly in encaustic for about 10 years and more recently in ink and acrylic on plexiglass. His favourite themes are: crowds, urban landscapes, street scenes, seascapes, portraits, etc.
encaustic is a technique dating back to ancient Egypt (portraits of Fayum from the 1st to the 5th century) and consisting of using beeswax heated, mixed with pigments. This medium thanks to the amber finish and the transparency of the wax allows fuzzy and faded effects. This technique, which is currently not very widespread in France, is mainly practiced in Anglo-Saxon countries
, and painting on inverted glass (or painting under glass) is an artistic technique that is executed directly on a sheet of glass or plexiglass. Glass or plexiglass supports painting as a canvas would. Welded to the glass, it is through this support that we contemplate the work. Thus glass or plexiglass serves both as a support and as a protective varnish. It should be noted that this is a "cold" painting technique so that the process does not require baking, the work is done on the back of the support and requires a "mirror effect" when the image is executed since what is painted upside down on the right is located on the left.
