The complete project created especially for the exhibition Painting France was a "drawing" made in a virtual studio, from which I then created a video with text and musical accompaniment, then I painted a picture (French still life in the style of Vanitas (in the tradition of the Dutch masters), acrylic on canvas, 60 x 80), which is the culmination of the project and is currently on display in the window of the Dominique Gallery (8 Rue du Commerce, 41000 Blois, France) until October 25, 2025.
I present to you the complete project created especially for the exhibition at the Dominique Gallery in Blois (8 Rue du Commerce, Blois, FRANCE).
It was a “drawing” created in a virtual studio, from which I then created a video with text and musical accompaniment, then I painted a picture that is the culmination of the project and is currently on display in the gallery window in Blois.
You will also find additional commentary on the video.
I hope you enjoy watching it.
🎬Commentary on the video
▪️The beginning. De Gaulle, his declaration, etc.
▪️Medieval France
Construction of a typical cathedral on a cross, Gothic vaults, the film unfolds in real time, at the speed at which the drawing was made.
All life is based on faith – hence the crosses as the foundation and center. Faith was accompanied by well-known bloody events centered in Blois – the Wars of Religion – hence the many shades of red on the cross and the ground. Everything is steeped in blood.
There is a lot of virtual glass – as there is a reference to stained glass windows and the fragility of life.
▪️Renaissance
The map of old France is constructed in time from glass, the country is divided in two – the left side is blue and the stylized Loire River appears there.
Stylization of a typical castle. The royal fleur-de-lis, a symbol covered in glass, evokes the idea of the instability and fragility of time.
▪️Revolution
The letters are drawn using a special “fire brush.” The symbol: fire and destruction.
Guillotine. The “wet areas” reflect the fires. Stylized crowd of condemned people.
Even the main slogan – fire as a symbol of renewal and the painful culmination of suffering. I draw them with my left hand (I am left-handed) in real time, without acceleration.
▪️19th century. Empire
Associated with the heat of the smelting furnaces of the technical revolution. Brush with a different texture. Stylized representation of a locomotive and railroad tracks.
Cinema: black and white films, only the theater is colored by the colorful clothes of the audience. Stylized combination of a camera, a movie camera, and the first film projector.
▪️20th century. Wars
The same “brush of fire,” but a different principle. On the word WAR, the fire is aggressive, destructive; on the word RESISTANCE, it is warm, like the flame of a candle in a cellar, the hope of liberation from darkness.
▪️21st century
Transition to soothing colors – sky, green meadows, sun – then back to the virtual glass on which the number 21 appears.
Theme of fragility. Multicolored lines – symbolizing multiculturalism – around which a fog gradually appears, symbolizing an uncertain future. A stylized “black square” from which the glass “sprouts” again, symbolizing the fragility of the moment.
Three stylized stone columns in the colors of the French flag are gradually intertwined by a fourth blue column, symbolizing eternity.
We then move in the opposite direction through all the “virtual rooms” back to the beginning: the corridor of time.