Works by Claude Tétot
Claude Tétot is a French abstract artist whose work expresses harmony in disharmony by exploring the enigmatic unity that can exist between seemingly disparate elements, such as graphic patterns and gestural markings.
Tétot was born in 1960 in Angoulême, a small community in southwestern France, and today he lives and works in Savins, just south of Paris.
Technique
Tétot employs different mediums and methods to achieve different types of attitudes in his compositions. Whether he is making a drawing or a painting, he may employ something like fluorescent acrylics to create a graphic pattern, a hard edged line or a geometric shape. Next, he may use oil paint and traditional brushes to create an expressive, gestural line, or a painterly field of color. The fluctuations between opacity and translucency, and flatness and luminosity, are important to the personality of the work. He has developed the technique of surface preparation so that nuanced differences can be expressed in his white backgrounds. The seemingly empty space on is in fact filled with subtle gradations that emphasizes relationships between colors, and adds depth to the spatial relationships between the various pictorial elements of the composition.
Inspiration
Tétot is inspired by the search for unexpected harmonies. He could be placed in an aesthetic lineage with Hans Hofmann and Shirley Jaffe. Like Hofmann, Tétot relishes the hand painted mark, and is masterful at expressing depth by allowing contrasts between hues and tints to speak for themselves. Like Jaffe, Tétot employs the white ground of his surfaces as if it is an expression of form, and he fearlessly embraces cacophony, revealing the strange harmonies that exist within apparent contradictions. Tétot then extends beyond the traditions of his Modernist influences. He simplifies his approach, creating compositions that speak abstractly, though directly, to universal themes, such as: chaos vs. order; the hand-drawn mark vs. the graphic pattern; and what is present vs. what is absent. At its most poetic, his work expresses unity between dissimilar elements; it finds beauty in discord.
Exhibitions
Tétot has exhibited in solo and group exhibitions in galleries and museums in France, Luxembourg, and Germany.
Collections
In addition to private collections, his work is in the permanent collections of the National Foundation for Contemporary Art in Paris and the Regional Contemporary Art Fund, Auvergne.
Solo Exhibitions
2016
Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
2014
Bernard Ceysson Gallery, Saint-Etienne
2013
Artistic Moments, Paris
Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
2011
Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
Bernard Ceysson Gallery, Luxembourg
Ruth Leuchter Gallery, Düsseldorf
2009
Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
Bernard Ceysson Gallery, Luxembourg
2007
Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
Bernard Ceysson Gallery, Saint-Etienne
2006
"The Ring", Artothèque de Nantes
2004
Suzanne Tarasiève Gallery, Paris
2003
Fernand Léger Gallery, Crédac,
Contemporary Art Center of Ivry-sur-Seine
Space Commines, Paris
2002
"Art in the Chapels", Chapel Saint-Fiacre, Melrand
Group Exhibitions
2018
Ceysson & Bénétière Gallery, Luxembourg
2015
And that the meeting alive, Association A bird's eye of the circle,
Bernard Boesch Museum
2014
And that the adventure continues, collection P.Delaunay,
Museum of Fine Arts Bernay
Carte blanche to Fabienne Gaston-Dreyfus, Galerie Brun Leglise
2013
Almost black and white, Galerie Jean Fournier
2012
The line passed Abstraction (s), Gallery Bernard Ceysson Luxembourg
2010
"20 years of the macc, a proposal of Pierre Wat",
House of contemporary art Chaillioux, Fresnes
2009
"Moving in", Nathalie Elemento, Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
"Around Pierre Buraglio", Villa Tamaris Art Center,
La Seyne-sur-Mer
"General Brawl / Drawings", Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Saint-Etenne
2008
"One Hundred Chairs-Works",
Ministry of culture and communication,
Paris, exhibition organized by Philippe Delaunay
"Supports / Surfaces", Galerie Bernard Ceysson, Luxembourg
2007
Jean Fournier Gallery, Paris
"The Moment Support / Surface",
Bernard Ceysson Gallery, Saint-Etienne
2005
Exhibition in companies:
Price Water House Coopers, Denton Wilde Sapte,
Business Object, Paris
2001
Carte blanche to Pierre Wat, with Frédérique Loutz,
Contemporary Art House Chailloux, Fresnes
2000
Commines Area, Paris