The inhabitants of our region would have a bad grace not to go see the painting of Nora Boudjemaï who was born in Lyon, lives in this city and has already made a large number of exhibitions there, before the one we can currently see at the Regard Sud gallery. Either way, without prejudging individual tastes and even for those who will discover it on this occasion, it is more than likely that the meeting will be strong, even impressive. From the outset, we are won over by the certainty that a person exists on the walls of this gallery, that he expresses himself and speaks to us; and that we would be fools not to hear it, definitely deaf to all that life can say and give us.

If we think of the old debate that we sometimes emerge about painting, opposing color and form, we quickly understand that there is no need to be here. Let us rather suggest evoking the colored matter of his paintings, and if it is a question of resorting to a couple of words to define or attempt to define the complexity of his painting, let's say that it would be the couple material and movement which we see although, if there is complexity, it is not a question of contradiction but of complementarity.

The material, let's talk about it, its rich presence cannot escape anyone, it is the first thing we see when looking at Nora Boudjemaï's paintings, the one that imposes itself on us by its thickness but also its plasticity. Because there is never any blockage, as would an immobile substance which would definitely seek to impose itself. The material is both consistent and flexible, it still bears the clearly visible traces of the movement by which it was placed where it is - or if we want the traces of the gesture which gave it shape, and which proves that this matter is related to a will and a freedom; you can even find some hints of whim and fantasy there, why not, it's the little "extra" that amuses and charms, or that prevents one from being too impressed by the vigor of the artistic act that the array unfolds.

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With Nora Boudjemaï, matter and movement participate in a vitality whose joyful expression is obviously underlined by the color, powerful, frank and varied. None seems to be refused to us, even if the current exhibition gives the feeling of wanting to explore particularly the possibilities of the color green, in an original way if one thinks, in general, of the painting of today. However the artist likes the diversity of colors, it seems obvious, to the point of not wishing to mix them with each other at the risk of weakening them, but rather of juxtaposing them, so that they enhance each other. It uses contrasts between them, but does not abuse them, reserving for certain light spots, of lesser dimension, a luminosity which is almost astounding by its brilliance.

This is to say that for those who receive these paintings, (like a visual shock) and look at them (as objects of contemplation), the sensation is to be fulfilled: we devote to the artist a kind of gratitude for the impulse that his painting communicates and for the euphoria we owe him.

 

Denise Brahimi

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