For 35 years, Jean-Claude Meynard, one of the signers of the Fractalist Manifesto in 1997, has been exploring the complexity of reality and mankind’s place within this complexity.

From 11 September to 17 October 2010, Jean-Claude Meynard presents at the Villa Tamaris, the exhibition Babel, the Geometry of Enigmas,  gathering one hundred works created since the 1970s, ranging from hyperrealism to fractal.

Hyperrealist paintings and fractal works mingle in over 1,000 m², inviting the viewer to a unique pictorial experience, a veritable voyage to the core of creation throughout 35 years of artistic research.

By thus grouping very distinct fractal works, the artist has refreshed a remarkable phenomenon :

works echo each other visually, in mutually-pollinating pictorial resonances, and hybridize to the point of making new works.

As Robert Bonaccorsi, the director of the Villa Tamaris Art Centre points out, “It’s true that

the exhibition at the Villa Tamaris was the origin for this confrontation, where an interrogation

in the form of enigmas is posed at the outset: how can an artist propose figurative representation,

where apparently everything is faithful, then move to a form of geometrical abstraction

through an extremely diverse history? (…)

In fact, Jean-Claude Meynard’s approach from the very beginning intimates reality in its complexity. Representation is constantly challenged. This approach I find engrossing.”

Jean-Claude Meynard’s exhibition is based on Babel, the icon of complexity, and it explores

the concept of the Geometry of Enigmas through painting hybrids, at once strangers and

twins, where one can see the permanence of gesture, theme and the artist’s wonderings.

This wonderment is existential and pictorial: what are the odds for survival for mankind in

the complexity of the world? And the odds of survival for the subject in painting ?

A set of monumental works will also be shown in the gardens of Villa Tamaris.

A book from Editions Fragments International and a film directed by Gilles Bastianelli about this

exhibition will commemorate this one-off pictorial experience.

Jean-Claude Meynard has shown his works all over the world and most recently the Babel

works in Italy, Turkey, China and France. His works are part of many public and private

collections in Europe.

Main dates

Friday 10 September from 6-9 pm : Opening in the presence of the artist

Saturday 11 September from 2 pm : Exhibition open to the public

Open every day from 2-6:30 pm except Mondays and holidays.

Free admittance

Guided visits by appointment

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