Thérèse de Saint Phalle: The double life of Bernard Jardel (Interview)

Could one be an artist exhibiting at Tokyo, Nagoya, Houston, Beirut, Madrid, paint more than sixty canvases a year, while holding the responsibilities of an enterprise?

It's a challenge which Bernard Jardel, 40, takes up, whose exhibition opens on the 15th of March at Brussels.His paintings, severely constructed, makes the waves of trapezes converge towards an objective.
If his paintings are bought by an Oriental as well as by an European collector, it is because they evoque the sentiment of" Odyssey of the Space », a flight towards the infinite by a series of perpectives. A circle vibrates, vertical blades across it, the hues of which indicates the diffraction of the light. A style which is unique and doesn't have the slightest resemblance to any other. Without signature on his paintings, one still recognises the style of Jardel.Married to a ravishing young woman of Russian origin, two children, Jardel has transformed one of the rooms in his apartment to a workshop. In the room adjoining the drawing-room, with a lamp on his work table, a square, drawing pencils, enable him to conceive his compositions Bernard Jardel, dark-haired, lively, brings forth the riches of his two existences.

- If I don't confine myself to this discipline, I would perhaps get up at four in the afternoon only to sleep again at five! 

His time-table?

- I get up at five every morning, I paint until seven thirty. I take my breakfast, a shower, I shave and disguise myself as a businessman.

He forms part of the commercial management of a construction enterprise.

- My occupation is designing the facades of buildings. My professional life enables me to meet architects. In the building, the contractor, plumber or a mason,all are artists in a way.

If he does't have to go for a business lunch, Jardel comes back home, where he paints while eating a sandwich.

- Around three o'clock, I am at the office again. In the evening, I retun home, and proceed with the painting in hand. Sometimes, I change once again for dinner withthe clients. I pass my life changing.

He works nineteen hours a day every day of the week, and recuperates his sleep while in a taxi, for example. He sleeps at once, as if by will.

- One can, as a matter of fact practice two professions,as conscientiously, one as the other.

His mother yearned to be a cantatrice; he has a brother who is an architect. Another will be publishing a book in March.

- As far as I remember, l always loved sketching. I drew non stop, groping, searching. One beging by copying vases, flowers, one is taught to hold a pencil, to make plaster-casts, one in initiaded to the delights of oil-painting or to the watercolours.

Bernard Jardel always expressed himself with a paper and pencil, calls himself « an apostate of architecture», which he studied at the Beaux Arts. Married, with two children, for fifteen years he leads a serious life as a businessman, while continuing his endeavour to discover the vistas of painting. He made gifts of his paintings to his friends.

- One day, a friend of mine said: « This the last painting that you give away. Now you are going to sell them.You shall see this will give you great satisfaction ».

Today, a painting of Jardel, small size (10 Figure) costs 2.000 Frs. If the painting is one metre fifty by one metre fifty, its worth 12.000 Frs.

- My profession dispenses me to earn for my living. I don't run the risk of having an artificially swollen head, or having a breakdown. It's preferable to let things take their natural course, without asserting oneself, or asking for exorbitant prices.

How does he conceive his paintings?

- First I sketch the drawing on a piece of paper. Each particle, each fragment receives a notation comparable to that of a musical score. For example, all calculated, I can dispose of eighteen hues of brown, I known where the light will be, the most contrasted place, the most violent colour, the most radiant, the parts which will be darkened. Their value is graded from the start.

He foresees the dissonances. A composition made for a small size painting is impossible to transpose on a big canvas. The space required need different plans.

- I have transformed myself since the last three or four years, ever since I conceived a certain geometrical design. I was neither interested in showing or making figurative designs. The mode of expression of which I have attained suits me fine. I actualize non stop.

A painting of 50 cm x 50 cm, represents for Bernard Jardel, between its conception and realisation, hundred and fifty hours of work.

- I pencil it first, I number the fragments, transcribe it on the canvas, and work filling each rectangle, each square with the necessary colour.

His big canvases are composed of dull tones: blue, beige, brown, with a rustle of variation of light and colour. Jardel has a distant look in his eyes. 

— It is difficult to redistribute the shades of light. Why does an arena exactly divided by the shade, has two sides, one sparkling and the other subdued? The ray of the sun where one can see the particles of dust dancing cut the obscure zones which drown the attic. One must seek the balance, know what hides under the obscurity.

Did he ever study mathematics?

- The minimum. I instinctvely tend towards this balance which corresponds, (if one studies arithmetic to the Golden Number), one comes across it, often in architecture, which embarks in the graphic quest which seeks the Golden number in an unconscious manner.
A perfect white sphere is closer than a black one. Two spheres placed at the distance of two metres, the brighter of the two will seem at the distance of one metre while the darker will seem to be placed at the distance of three metres.
Volume on plane, a black sphere will approach forward, plane on plane, it will go back in the depth and resemble a hole.

Don't you find it difficult passing from the universe of painting to that of construction?
Jardel leant back, his elbows on his knees.

- Its painful to create. It is such a solitary task, so anguishing that I am happy to find myself in this lively community, which is the world of work. Sometimes there are rude encounters, but its good, for the lonely man who is an artist, to have the possibility of acting. One feels like a normal man here, whereas sometimes I am afraid of risking in to the fathomless space of my own paintings.

By Thérèse de St Phalle

 

Editor’s Note:

Thérèse de St Phalle was a talented French artist and writer, primarily active in the mid-20th century. Known for her refined portraiture and connection to the Parisian avant-garde, she captured her subjects with depth and insight. Thérèse is also remembered as the mother of famed artist Niki de Saint Phalle, whose groundbreaking work in sculpture and feminist art was partly shaped by the artistic environment Thérèse fostered. Although she may be less known today, Thérèse’s impact resonates through her own work and through the legacy of her daughter, one of the 20th century’s most iconic artists.