When asked whether he had chosen to paint almost exclusively animals, Gilles Aillaud replied: "Because I love them".
For contemporaries of the first pop works and their more or less distant fascination with consumer goods and mass communication, the paintings of Gilles Aillaud (deceased 2005) are nothing exotic. Because he could not be a philosopher, Gilles Aillaud became a painter. However, instead of painting a philosophy, Gilles Aillaud devoted himself to "philosophical painting".
Cage aux lions © Adagp, Paris, Crédit photographique : Fabrice Gousset, courtesy Loevenbruck, Paris
By giving the impression of representing animals, it is our relationship with nature that asserts itself as its only and true subject. His technical "humility" gives shape to the dream of reconciliation, far from any project of "domination" and "possession" of the world. The questions that our time poses to our relationship with life show how important this anticipated retrospective is.
October 4, 2023 to February 26, 2024
