Jean-Louis VILA (1948) - Lot 118

Jean-Louis VILA (1948) Fructidor, 1988 Mixed media on paper Signed and dated lower right 60 x 60 cm Jean-Louis Vila, born in 1948 in Elne, is a French painter who lives and works in Collioure. Jean-Louis Vila has taught in La Seyne-sur-Mer and Marseille, and was director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Perpignan. His early work was marked by the influence of the Supports-Surfaces movement, to which he felt close, and which opened up new possibilities: liberation from the frame, from the symbolism of color and from the expression of the work. In this challenge to traditional pictorial expression, his work remains nourished by "memory". The abstract space of his painting is punctuated by symbols and references to his memories and experiences. With a minimalist attitude, Jean-Louis Vila always creates simple, evocative and symbolic geometric figures with a great economy of means. Circles, crosses and dots regularly invade his compositions. The religious mingles with the anecdotal: shapes inspired by Catalan Romanesque architecture, cypress triangles or "caparutxes", the hoods of the Holy Week procession in the Sanch series. The Sanch series, executed between 1986 and 1990, bears witness to the very strong relationship between Catalonia and religion. The artist presents the elements of the procession - hoods, crosses - in a work whose form is reminiscent of church altarpieces or frescoes, and whose materials (rusty iron, lead) convey the heaviness of the procession. The combination of paint and metal places his work somewhere between painting and sculpture. The framing reinforces the intriguing, and indeed mystical, character of the scene, which appears to be observed through a window from an interior space. The Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret devoted an exhibition to his work in 1981. His work is exhibited again in Céret at Galerie Odile Oms in 2017 with "Peintures et sculptures". In 2020, he will take part in the group show "L'Esprit du lieu" at the Musée d'Art Hyacinthe Rigaud (Perpignan). Jean-Louis Vila's career: https://www.musee-ceret.com/collection/jean-louis-vila/