CHARLES BEZIE

Born in 1934 in Varades

Bézie has an intuitive relationship with numbers; they speak to him of perfect human proportions, of constructions and painting. He interprets them, paying homage to them, painting sequences of numbers as others might paint landscapes. His pictorial exploration takes shape in compositions where the division of the canvas and the progressive layering of paints play a role, culminating in a subtle relief. The canvas's weave gradually disappears beneath the calculated thickness of the paint.

“I have been using straight lines since 1974—horizontal, vertical, and the two diagonals. Initially, I wanted to contrast my work with that of our great predecessors, Malevich and Mondrian, by attempting to ‘erase’ geometry with a network of fine lines; this is what I call my graphic period. Over the following years, my work went through several periods where the line thickened until it became a band, culminating in the symbol I called ‘Quadrille.’ In 1995, I abandoned oblique lines. Since then, my work has been an exploration of rhythms, derived from numbers: irregular rhythms with ‘Gradations,’ where the squares have their surface divided by lines, and regular rhythms with ‘Cadences,’ where the rows of squares are underlined only at the top and bottom. The year 2003 marked the beginning of the ‘Fibonacci Sequence.’”.

This 13th-century Italian mathematician is remembered for his series of progressive numbers, which are formed very simply by adding the two preceding digits or numbers, and also because the quotients between two adjacent numbers all approach 1.618, the famous "golden ratio." My current project is to continue working with numbers for as long as it brings meaning to my artistic approach

Charles Bézie, 2007

“Charles Bézie’s work is certainly not flashy; the keen interest it holds for us does not come from the colours, or the motifs, or any particular feature of the space, the composition… On the contrary, it is an austere journey, which cannot be dissected or fragmented, to accept one characteristic and reject another. Each of these works forms a perfectly homogeneous whole that refuses to reveal itself at first glance.” And if we agree to relinquish our own categories of understanding, our plastic principles, if we agree to create a void (which has nothing to do with intellectual or emotional poverty) and thus make ourselves available to the artist, then we will perceive a strange music, a melody which, through its simplicity and its multiple variations, will take us to other shores, to other, less superficial sensations, to horizons freed from the base contingencies of daily life, where Plato would practice Zen meditation, in a way, to the grand rhythm of the passing world and the geometry that endures

Bernard Fauchille, 2008 – Excerpts from Charles Bézie and interior painting.