Engaging the world

Self taught artist Patrick Morin exhibits at Barefoot Gallery

Gods, Mantras and other stories, the subject of the untitled exhibition of the colourful creations by French artist and designer Patrick Morin who has been living in Sri Lanka since 1986 is currently being displayed at the Barefoot Gallery Colombo.Born in 1962 in Brittany, Western France, Patrick is interestingly of Celtic origin and studied English from Rennes University and graduated in Tamil language and Indian culture from the National Institute of Oriental Languages in Paris. He started painting in his twenties, after he arrived in Sri Lanka.

Patrick considers painting as a way of searching and trying to reach the divine.

In a statement released by the artist, he refers to himself as a self taught artist who has chosen not to follow classes or study any particular techniques but to let it be and evolve as it comes.

 Colors did not come to him naturally at first and he was in fact ill at ease with them, not really knowing how to use them, how to mix them.  At the beginning, he experimented with only black Indian ink and a type of golden ink but slowly ventured in using colored inks: red, blue, green or maroon, toning them down with plenty of water to neutralise their strength.

Twenty years ago, a Japanese painter, Takako, saw his drawings and encouraged him to use colors advising him not to mix or tone them down but instead to use them as they are, telling him that primary colors go so well with his style of drawings. It still took Patrick a couple of years to allow himself to open to them completely but was finally enveloped by all their strength and simplicity.

He cannot state how he began to paint, describing it as a kind of present necessity but one that was rarely expressed and definitely repressed in his home. Patrick really started to draw regularly in Sri Lanka as he stayed in a temple and studied Buddhism.

It began with the drawing of lines in black and golden ink to pass the lonely time which grew to imprint simple Buddhist stories, the Hindu gods, their symbols, vehicles and consorts in his mind. Studying Buddhism led him to the world of pre-Buddhist India and its gods, opening an inner universe which has never left him.

The artist can clearly conceive art as a political tool and in his teens, considered that a worthy artist could only be one engaged politically and would love his painting too to be politically engaged, to express social revendications, (French: as claim or demand in a very political or activist way.

It is a claim for right or ownership), gender or racial issues, to express the anger and frustration of his generation but yet he cannot.

Studying Arabic and Hebrew opened his mind to new oppositions, new worlds, new symbolisms and energies which he wanted to express in his most recent paintings, but these new influences upon touching the paper and in spite of himself were once again transformed to his previous spiritual influences. The exhibition closes on 21 November.