Artist : Alain Michel BOUCHER (1944-2020)
Title : Factory
Technique and support : Gouache on thin paper
Particularities of the work : Original painting signed lower left by the artist
Size : 30 x 38 cm
Condition : Good
Origine : Workshop Alain Michel BOUCHER, a certificate of authenticity engaging the responsability of the gallery will be issued.
Reference : "In praise of color, awareness of the world", Alain VIRCONDELET, Editions Mediane (See photo)
Expert commentary : Alain Michel BOUCHER is an offbeat artist, dreamer and poet who gives us to see the real world around him but also his inner world fueled by a flamboyant and colorful imagination. His works are daring, powerful and rich and he emanates a real and captivating scent of life that only a talented being in phase with his environment can share with us. It is the moment and the inspiration that guides the choice of subjects, formats and technique. This approach leads the artist to create series full of tenderness, humanity and hope despite the difficulties of the contemporary world. Alain Michel BOUCHER’s painting from 1967 to 1987 (his Norman period) is first abstract and then becomes semi-figurative. His then rather dark color palette gives us a glimpse of the threatening universe of cities and factories, but his painting is never sad. In fact, in the "planetary" series, the joyful rhythm, even in the absence of color, softens the fury of machines and the loneliness of men. In the series of "factories" it is the color that softens the hard life of these workers who nevertheless manage to be happy. From 1975 he painted the series "imaginary characters" whose symbolic presence designates the human species. The artist paints crowds, groups of uprooted men and women standing there waiting for something, in a derisory destiny. But the absence of apparent features of the characters and the boldness of the colors show the need to live together in joy. From 1987 the artist lives in the Gers and his palette incorporates the colors we know him with this dominant blue so characteristic of the artist which gives his patterns unlimited strength. The other colors become more vivid (yellow, red and green in particular) and feed on multiple sensations, new feelings of exquisite tenderness, sun, joys and infinity. But they have also matured from the sorrows, the violence of the world and a particular indifference peculiar to the artist. Throughout his career, Alain Michel BOUCHER will be influenced by the artists of the COBRA movement: CORNEILLE, Pierre ALECHENSKY, Jean Michel ATLAN, Asger JORN and Karel APPEL. Like them, his drawing is expressive, simplifying and spontaneous. As for the color, it is sometimes intertwined at the limit of the identifiable. His art, based on truth and optimism, advocates a return to natural and instinctive values. Subjects treated in an abstract or semi-figurative way by the artist are centered on man and his emotions. This man is inseparable from his environment in the broad sense and therefore humanity, women, love, the city, factories, nature, birds ... are undoubtedly the favorite subjects of the artist.
Biography of the artist : Alain Michel BOUCHER was born in 1944 in Normandy to peasant parents. From the age of 3 he decides he will paint but is diverted from his vocation by the family environment. He left college to work as a cabinetmaker in an antique furniture restoration workshop and in 1967 he began to draw alone. His military service in black Africa introduced him to a world of unknown colors that he later incorporated into his palette. He then settled in Rouen and attended evening classes at the School of Fine Arts with Robert Savary and Leon Toublanc as teachers. He has various jobs at night (night watchman in a factory, truck washer, stretcher bearer in hospital, etc.) and draws during the day. Toublanc immediately believed in the talent of the young artist and convinced him to present two paintings at the Salon d'Automne in 1970 at the Grand Palais, where he won the Othon Friesz prize. In 1987, Alain Michel Boucher moved to the Gers in Lectoure where his painting became colorful and luminous. Numerous personal and collective fairs and exhibitions followed in France and in Le Monde. His works are present in many Museums in France and abroad.