Philippe de Brisoult : What do you paint ?

Baron Renouard : I find branches, brambles, pieces of wreckage on the beach, I also find pieces of tree trunks which later inspire me. I take macro photos. Macro photo prints enter into my paintings, not by being copied but once my mind has thought about them and reworked them. I record what I have seen, such as landscapes viewed from planes. Those from the war of course, and others from throughout my life, like numerous shots of Alaska from ten kilometres of altitude. And many years later in my canvases, I rediscover certain landscapes, a lake, a river, a valley. I’ve drawn estuaries, the inland sea. Sometimes I’m asked what all that represents, so I reply, nature. In reality what I paint is space, time, music, poetry, the wind…

PdB : How do you work ?

BR : I start by creating outlines in small formats. Often I use material such as bits of string to give rhythm to the future composition. Once the outline is done, I work with colour which gives the shapes a certain poetry, a music, a spirituality. The work with colour is essential, it’s this stage which gives soul to the canvas. I paint on the flat then like many Japanese painters my thoughts come to me while working, and are added to the first two stages (outline and colour). Once the canvas has dried I use sand paper to make earlier layers reappear… (to continue interview click below right)

PdB : What is your link with Asia ?

BR : I have participated in around fifteen exhibitions in Japan and China. Asia has helped me enormously in the construction of emptiness and the conception of Zen. My grandfather, Paul Renouard already had strong links with Japan. The National Museum of Tokyo possesses 200 of his prints and drawings. So, each time that I go to Japan, I present in the same exhibition my work and that of my grandfather.

…and with the french Brittany ?

You’ll notice in my canvases many aerial views as well as the ebb and flow of the sea in the bay at the Brignogan beach. My life can be found in my work, you can find all that has inspired me, all that has lived within me and that remains within me today.