RAMON AZUL (1957) - Quatre fois le même silence

RAMON AZUL - Mixed technique: print with pigmented ink, brush-on varnish applied by hand, for the durable protection of the artwork.

The canvas is divided into four equal squares where the same body reappears: seated, knees drawn to the chest, arms folded over the legs, head tilted on folded arms, bare feet in the foreground. In the upper left, an ultramarine skin on a gold-yellow background, eyes closed under a long black mane; on the right, a turquoise body on a raspberry red, gaze fixed on the observer. In the lower left, a brick skin turned the other way on a deep purple, eyelids closed; on the right, a green body on a vivid orange, eyes open.
From one square to the next the pose does not move: the color changes, the body turns once, the hair varies, and that’s all. The painting does not show four people but the same fold traversed four times, sometimes asleep, sometimes returning your gaze. The repetition does not calm the gesture, it establishes it.
Overseas, turquoise, brick and bright green for the bodies; gold-yellow, raspberry, violet and orange for the backgrounds, held in broad saturated fields with no floor or horizon. The modeling remains smooth, built in tight gradients that hollow the thighs and the back; the material is read mainly in the fine light scratches that run across the shoulders and the backgrounds. The black of the hair and the border surrounding the grid holds the whole.

Mixed technique: print with pigmented ink, brush-on varnish applied by hand, for the durable protection of the artwork.
Varnish applied by hand, for the depth of the blues and the durable protection of the artwork.
Support: premium canvas stretched on a wood frame, ready to hang.
Format: 40 × 40 cm.
Signed RAMON AZUL · Galerie Labo Joconde / Atelier Joconde · certificate of authenticity provided.

RAMON AZUL is one of the creations bringing together the artists Le Yack, Neo Pablo and Popsan within Atelier Joconde, a family studio where three sensibilities coexist: neorealism, pop, and libre figuration. Azul, means blue in Spanish, and under this name the Studio paints only one thing: a nude seated, knees drawn to the chest, arms folded over the legs, head resting where it finds support, eyes sometimes closed and sometimes fixed on the viewer. The skin is ultramarine blue, green, turquoise or brick, the background a saturated color with no floor or decor: the color does not describe the body, it speaks of its state, in the line of Picasso’s blue period and the arbitrary color of the Fauves. The modeling remains smooth and sculptural, volumes full, the silhouette closed in an oval that occupies almost the entire canvas. When the same figure returns in a grid, each cell reinterpreted in another range, it is the serial repetition of pop that takes over and makes an intimate gesture into a motif.

Each work is a unique piece.
Instagram @atelierjoconde.

Keywords: RAMON AZUL, blue nude, folded body, blue period, saturated color, serial pop figure, four-square grid, color variations, quadriptych on a single canvas, French contemporary art, Le Yack, Atelier Joconde