Shining India Ink

The French Cultural Center is hosting an exhibit by Parisian artist Jean-Pierre Plendre, who, I suspect, does not like paints. Yet it transpired that, even without squeezing oil paint tubes, one can create one’s own solid and truly shining world. Even if only in black and white, the exposition’s title, Shining India Ink, by no means overstates the effect of the artist’s works on the viewer. Only a tireless assiduous painter can draw tens of thousands of parallel lines in India Ink, building geometric volumes and creating works that suddenly begin to convey ideas that even the artist might not have meant to convey. In his strange compositions I immediately recognized a Kafkaesque world with tens of thousands of black shades trying to conquer the white still vacant places on the sheet. Light is hastily retreating chased by the inexorable shadow. The shadow in these drawings is alive and active, it seems not to repeat the movements of the key figures invisible because of their white clothes, but on the contrary, it is the conqueror and dictator, as well as trendsetter of the whole composition.

If I didn’t know that the artist received his initial education as an architect, I would think of a remarkably lonesome figure, lost in the maze of his inner world, somewhere on Escher’s stairs, wishing to climb to the top and finding himself at the bottom, or vice versa. However, after being in contact with Jean-Pierre, my impressions were leveled out and achieved harmony with the artist’s personality. Indeed, he must be lonely, but he does not suffer; rather, he enjoys his creative solitude. He can spend hours sitting at his desk lamp on, toiling on his compositions. In fact, he says that his mind is relieved of thoughts and daily worries as a composition is filling out. His drawings are his medicine and works of art for the surrounding world. An ideal chain is built and one even envies his formula for success.

However, every artist has this formula his own way and this versatility is precisely what makes the world of art so diverse, so rich. In any case, I am certain that if you like Kafka’s novels you will like Jean-Pierre Plendre’s works, although he denies any connection with Kafka. Well, we viewers know better. How can a painter know where his brush will carry him? The exposition will last to the end of March, closing with the coming of real spring. I also regard this as symbolic, because his works are wintry in their minimalism.