MEET THE ARTIST, FINALLY (Languedoc)

Having thrown my hissy fit and demanded to be taken home I immediately regretted it when the car was swiftly pointed in the 'right' direction, St.Pons wards and not left for Poujol and Lamalou.
At Poujol there was to be the work of  Patrick Amorsi on show, here are some of his pieces gleaned from the internet -

 

                           
Not bad stuff! I particularly like the last sketchy one. So it would have been nice to view some work in the flesh, hopefully his atelier in Poujol is a permanent fixture and he'll be open again to the public sometime soon.

In Lamalou there is a gallery (or maybe there was a gallery), I've walked past a few times as it is situated in the former railway station adjacent to the 'Voie Vert' (Green Way, i.e. railway line converted to walking/cycling route) and there has never been an exhibition on at the time. So currently it is billed as the atelier of Faith O'Reilly, again I've 'acquired' a couple of images off the net and should either of the artists ever come across this blog I hope they don't mind I haven't asked permission to share. Faith O'Reilly is a very accomplished  abstract artist who develops her work from the landscape and events - definitely my kind of thing, so again I hope to see an expo of her work in the future.

 

So as we were driving home I requested a call in to Olargues and one last attempt to see the rare lesser spotted artist in their natural habitat. There was signage, there were paintings on the horizon and here indeed was a charming artist, Antonio Sclano. I hope Antonio won't take offence but we are not talking about an artist in the same league as those above. He is an enthusiastic painter, a lover of colour and a dab hand I thought with the palette knife, but no, he told me a fair bit of paint was applied with his finger and I think an admiration for the infamous Bob Ross also came up in our conversation! He was equally, if not more keen to show me his little oasis of a garden, he was an absolute delight, and was very keen to share his latest idea for affordable art - his work printed on magnetic mouse mats! show your art on your fridge, and useful to boot!!

 

Finally we headed home having at last had a bit of a conversation about art in the Herault, although admittedly none the wiser about art in the Herault really. Oh well, c'est la vie, eventually when the 'holidays' are over and I settle down to work I will pursue all these possible contacts to procure some wisdom on the French art world with a bit more conviction the next time around.

 

Found a picture by Antonio -