What in the perception of a material world gives us access to another world?
And how can we measure the echo at work within us?

Didier Boussarie, excerpt from Texte I – 18.02.2022

The title Étang communal (Communal Pond) resonates with public service, and straightforwardly announces the source of inspiration for Didier Boussarie’s recent works born out of his fascination with the life of a pond in the Loiret region. Borrowed from road signs, this precise yet mischievous title conveys an idea of administrative pragmatism screening the poetic vision of his works. Here materialize an ever- renewed sense of wonder and an intimate observation of a micro-world, of this nature at the disposal of citizens: surface of water, depths, thicket, fauna, flora, and lights…this body of water is a whole, and this whole both sparks the desire to know and understand and feeds reveries.

Like a keen and insatiable lover, Didier Boussarie reconnects almost every day, whatever the season, with his pond. His story is transcribed in the form of painting and drawing on canvas, cardboard, paper, and printed fabric. His media have evolved, and the colour palette which was limited for so long now covers the full spectrum. Yet Didier Boussarie’s story with nature endures, as it has done since he was a child. This is one of the simplest and most complex stories: this is a story about what lives, pulsates, dies, is reborn. […]

Despite what we think we know about the subjects, the silent beauty of Didier Boussarie’s works draws in because the artist uses his freedom to go beyond “comfortable beauty”. He presents the frightening reality of a wild fire by making us live the heat of that devastating spectacle, but he also manages to convey the quiet calm of fringe lilies, glistening like a green mass over the water. Didier Boussarie breathes in deeply his relationship with the living and exhales with ardour or with gentleness the drama and pleasure he observes. His Communal Pond marks a poetic territory, where tranquillity and amazement at the cycle of life coexist.

Tenderly, and with eyes wide open…