CONTEMPORARY ARTS SINGULIERS GUADELOUPE by Alex BOUCAUD says AL'

Alex BOUCAUD says AL '-Sculptures in the chain saw

The last exhibition (exposure) of Al's sculptures ' which took place in the center Rémy Nainsouta from 17 till 25 October 2008 was worth seeing. He (it) is interesting to see how this self-taught artist arrests (dreads) various wood of ours island of Guadeloupe to offer us a universe which looks like us. Tree trunks of diverse gasolines(essences), roots of all kinds, drink floated got back here and there, inspire from the beginning Alex in his (her, its) sculptural work. He (it) chooses them during meetings, in ballad. The wooden pieces speak to him (her) instinctively from this meeting and are sculptured in the chain saw. The chain saw which destroys (annuls), cuts, saws, prunes, massacres, kill becomes here, instrument of Creation.
We meet ourselves in front of masks flattened and hollowed out in high relief, of an important thickness. Masks in the surrealist speeds(looks) having expressions Negros and forms round off, privileged by the sculptor, sending back(dismissing) to us to the African masks and to the carnival of the Antilles. Masks of ourselves! Masks which show the other thing (matter) than the outside but indeed the meanders of our personalities, the complexity of the interiority of our beings, us, West Indian, in the light of these hollows cut with depth offering surprising contrasts. These masks also call back (remind) Caesar's (César) "compression ". We thus observe this mixture enter surrealism, africanité and Caesar's (César) sculpture: a work half-blood.
Another part (party) of the production of the artist concerns the face (figure). It is about sculptures in round-bump representing faces this time in three dimensions to the totemic aspect. We find the same described characteristics higher without the effect of compression but in forms rather lengthened(stretched out) with sorts(species) of trickles sculptured in wood, prominences, exgrowths or protuberances making reference to the expansion (cf "expansions" of Caesar(César)). Sometimes the artist plays on oppositions: rough / smooth by letting the bark of the tree speak to us in a way about expressionist.
The third part(party) of the work of Alex BOUCAUD is a reflection on the human body treated(handled) in volume or in bas-relief: fragments of bodies, characters in its entirety sometimes sending back(dismissing) to the ancestral statuary of Africa (Dogon) or funnier calling back(reminding) the "RAW"("GROSS") art or the work of Gaston Chaissac. The artist investigates the evocation of the movement through the biguidi, the Creole word meaning the unstable balance, or then his (her) opposite: the statics. Always in a strain and a retreat (withdrawal) of the material (subject), sometimes going to the évidement, these sculptures offer a new glance on the treatment of the skin. Gasolines(essences) of clear or dark wood and diverse skate participate in this reflection and propose us a multiplicity of answers (quite smooth or rough and smooth or then contrasted in tints of skate used).
It happens that certain sculptures propose a double reading, to certain faces(figures) which could offer to the glance a piece of bodies often treated(handled) in a more abstract way.

Al ' is in the main line of the "Negros with talent " whom are his(her) predecessors: Télémaque FLABERNOT, Félix DESFONTAINES, Armand BAPTISTE or Roger AREKIAN, Guadelupian sculptors.

Gilles GIRARD, alumnus of the school of the LOUVRE, on October 27th, 2008