Tour 3 of 5
From fall to flight
Bodies that tilt, fall, then grow lighter until they vanish into flight.
≈ 2 min · 6 works
From the 1990s to 2009, the bodies painted by Roland Buraud gradually lose their weight: they tilt towards weightlessness, fall in the Chutes, then rise in the last canvases.
Le Grand Pleur (The Great Weeping)
1992–1994 · 195 × 300 cmOil on canvasImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland BuraudLe Grand Pleur, 1992 – 1994. In these years, the monolithic bodies, standing or lying, begin their tilt towards weightlessness.
Icare (Icarus)
1992–1994 · 150 × 200 cmOil on canvasImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland BuraudIcarus, 1992 – 1994. The title recalls the one who flew too close to the sun and fell: the fall is already there.
Blue decagon
1996 · Ø 250 cmOil on canvasImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland BuraudBlue Decagon, 1996: a ten-sided canvas. The shape of the picture itself escapes the rectangle, as the bodies escape gravity.
Untitled
2001–2004 · 16 × 22 cmOil on canvasImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland BuraudOne of the Chutes: from 2001, Roland Buraud painted a series of 110 small formats, on black backgrounds, in which the bodies fall.
The painter’s last canvas
2007–2009 · 100 × 130 cmOil on canvasImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland BuraudThe painter’s last canvas, 2007 – 2009. The bodies become diaphanous and light; their upward movements speak of disappearing into flight.
Untitled
2004Graphite on paperImage: Archives Roland Buraud · All rights reserved · estate of Roland BuraudA Chutes drawing, 2004, graphite on paper. The same subject taken up in pencil, without colour or black background.
End of the tour
Roland Buraud died in 2009. His last canvases, in room VI, are the lightest of his whole body of work.