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Even as Haure\u2019s oeuvre deals in the meeting of fan\u00adtasy and reality, he cap\u00adtures some\u00adthing of the spir\u00adi\u00adtual nature and the studied pace of Balinese life. He brings ele\u00adments of wonder to his tales, small dramas pos\u00adsessing a sin\u00adgular under\u00adstanding of his pro\u00adtag\u00ado\u00adnists, refined through years of obser\u00adva\u00adtion and living in the com\u00admu\u00adnity as a teacher.<\/p>\n
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His sub\u00adjects are brought to life through a soft color palette and abstrac\u00adtion that \u201cwhis\u00adpers\u201d to viewers\u2019 emo\u00adtions in such inti\u00admate works as After the Bath (2006)<\/em>, Colors From Indonesia (2006)<\/em>, and Melancholia (2013)<\/em>. Haure\u2019s palette also lightens the aus\u00adterity of his stark fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtive works such as The Time Keeper (2012)<\/em>, Stay Alive (2012)<\/em>, and Keeping in Mind (2014)<\/em>. The results are varied dream\u00adlike expe\u00adri\u00adences that linger in the mind\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n While Haure\u2019s art, for all its color and fine line, sug\u00adgests the easy acces\u00adsi\u00adbility of pho\u00adtog\u00adraphy, his painting demands that viewers tease out the heart of his tales, to give life to them beyond the frame and his smooth seduc\u00adtive sur\u00adfaces. This is vividly accom\u00adplished in such por\u00adtraits as After the Bath (2006)<\/em>, the trip\u00adtych Duality XVII (2008)<\/em>, Wisdom behind the Age (2011)<\/em> I\u2019ve Got a Dream to Remember (2012)<\/em>, Wind in the Trees (2012)<\/em>, Stay Alive<\/em>, I Would Like to See the Other Side (2012)<\/em>, Melancholia (2013)<\/em>, Keeping in Mind (2014)<\/em> . In this series of paint\u00adings Haure speaks can\u00addidly of lives lived on the edge of society, per\u00adsonal struggle, age, iso\u00adla\u00adtion, sad\u00adness, mental anguish, loss, and dreams.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here, for a few moments, we are voyeurs of a sur\u00adface calm\u00adness but aware, too, of per\u00adsonal angst.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is no tor\u00adment in Wisdom behind the Age<\/em> but there is sad\u00adness in the face and eyes and pos\u00adture of the ele\u00adgant, hand\u00adsome woman with her fur\u00adrowed brow, here right hand clasping her knee and the fin\u00adgers of her left hand pressed to her head, her volup\u00adtuous breasts almost tumble from her dress. Her eyes look at us but she does not see us: one senses that she may be looking back to her youth, to time when her beauty drew admiring glances, a time when she pam\u00adpered her\u00adself just as the sultry young woman in After the Bath<\/em> does.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is quiet plea\u00adsure here but not in Haure\u2019s moody painting Melancholia<\/em>, on the other hand, in which the young woman gazes without focus at the ground, her hands on her feet. Her sloped shoul\u00adders and absent\u00adminded gaze speak to the sad\u00adness that grips her mind.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haure real\u00adizes these three women in subtle line, exquisite detail, and abstrac\u00adtion that seems to rise as a living entity from the ground empha\u00adsizing the nat\u00adural eroti\u00adcism. In the trip\u00adtych Duality XVII<\/em>, how\u00adever, the old woman\u2014 arms at her sides, face stern, and eyes curious with ques\u00adtion\u00ads\u2014gaze out at the world resigned to her fate. One sees quiet dig\u00adnity in her cracked, fading beauty, but it is beauty nev\u00ader\u00adthe\u00adless, not a false nar\u00adra\u00adtive, which makes many uncom\u00adfort\u00adable. \u201cWe are afraid of beauty,\u201d<\/em> says Haure. \u201cWe are ter\u00adri\u00adfied of beauty as a tor\u00adment [for it is] excru\u00adci\u00adating, unreach\u00adable. I want to cap\u00adture the pre\u00adcise moment when things are exquisite.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haure\u2019s I\u2019ve Got a Dream to Remember<\/em>; Wind in the Trees<\/em>; Stay Alive<\/em>; I Would Like to See the Other Side<\/em>; and Keeping in Mind<\/em> are excel\u00adlent psy\u00adcho\u00adlog\u00adical studies of men alone, soli\u00adtary fig\u00adures who, through their pos\u00adtures, sug\u00adgest res\u00adig\u00adna\u00adtion to life\u2019s trou\u00adbles.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Either squat\u00adting or standing as they work or rest, facing us or with their backs to the viewer, we are aware of their abject struggle to be. They are sur\u00adviving in hard times, eking out a living as best as they can. Haure brings each figure alive through well-placed wash and muted colors, which recalls the free expres\u00adsion of tachisme. Haure\u2019s descrip\u00adtive line reveals layers of his pro\u00adtag\u00ado\u00adnists\u2019 lives.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n There is some\u00adthing restrained, too, in Haure\u2019s pre\u00adsen\u00adta\u00adtion of male fig\u00adures whose hard\u00adscrabble lives he por\u00adtrays. Here is impov\u00ader\u00adished humanity cap\u00adtured with grace and respect: there is nei\u00adther romantic nor nos\u00adtalgic ide\u00adal\u00adiza\u00adtion of the fig\u00adures. Here an ele\u00adgant line and abstract washes com\u00adbine tough\u00adness and gentle\u00adness that sur\u00adprises.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n A tender memory is revealed by a hand placing a single flower in I\u2019ve Got a Dream to Remember<\/em> and in I Would Like to See the Other Side<\/em> the man looks long\u00adingly into the dis\u00adtance where he can only imagine another life. But for me, Haure\u2019s three most pow\u00aderful and sen\u00adsi\u00adtive fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtive works are Stay Alive [see Cover], The Time Keeper, and Wind in the Trees, which are beau\u00adti\u00adfully real\u00adized paint\u00adings of under\u00adstated human tor\u00adment.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The wiz\u00adened figure of Stay Alive<\/em> is androg\u00ady\u00adnous, the crunched-up face speaks to time\u2019s deft aging touch; his right-hand fin\u00adgers lift a morsel of food from a paper holder to an eager mouth; the left-hand fin\u00adgers hold cigarette. Sitting on his abstracted place it looks as if the earth and he are one. Haure\u2019s details of the face, hands, fin\u00adgers, feet, and toes as well as how his clothes fold reveal his body add to the char\u00adacter\u2019s pres\u00adence.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The strong lines of the bones washed with muted hues of burnt browns and reds and purple lend the body of the man in The Time Keeper<\/em> a sense of despair, rein\u00adforced by the folds of his ragged clothes. In the wrin\u00adkled skin of the aged face eyes stare out in the middle dis\u00adtance as if his thoughts are per\u00adhaps of once-pleasant mem\u00ado\u00adries now lost in the doubt of the pre\u00adsent. The burning cigarette gripped loosely between thin fin\u00adgers punc\u00adtu\u00adates his thoughts.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sense of despair in Haure\u2019s por\u00adtraits of the impov\u00ader\u00adished is per\u00adhaps most vividly caught in the bent, ema\u00adci\u00adated figure leaning slightly for\u00adward in Wind in the Trees<\/em>. Again a com\u00adbi\u00adna\u00adtion of strong and del\u00adi\u00adcate line and light-col\u00adored hues define char\u00adacter and place. That Haure\u2019s por\u00adtraits have, at times, the quality of pho\u00adto\u00adre\u00adalism is no acci\u00addent as the artist employs pho\u00adtog\u00adraphy as a tool and as a ref\u00ader\u00adence point in his art-making.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As the Bali-based critic Jean Couteau notes on Haure\u2019s astute use of pho\u00adtog\u00adraphy in his essay The Art Concept Rhapsody (2012):<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cPho\u00adtographs \u2026 con\u00adtribute the lines, and even\u00adtu\u00adally, the ideational con\u00adtent of the work. But how can a pho\u00adtograph do this? By lending only some of its lines, the most evoca\u00adtive ones, while let\u00adting go of any overly nar\u00adra\u00adtive, detailed con\u00adtent. Of the pho\u00adtograph, there will even\u00adtu\u00adally remain only the min\u00adimum needed to sug\u00adgest a scene, and through this scene, a cer\u00adtain under\u00adstanding of sen\u00adsi\u00adtivity, ten\u00adder\u00adness and love. Everything is sug\u00adgested rather than affirmed. As a flowing mood then runs beyond the colors into the lines of the sub\u00adli\u00admated real.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Regard\u00adless of how tran\u00adsient Jean-Philippe Haure\u2019s world may appear, it is one estab\u00adlished on keen obser\u00adva\u00adtion and deep Christian faith. Born in 1969, in Orl\u00e9ans, France, on the banks of the Loire River, Haure studied arts and crafts at the \u00c9cole Boulle from 1983, which was where, according to the artist, \u201cI dis\u00adcov\u00adered the love of work well done, the tech\u00adniques to achieve it, and the way to develop one\u2019s own per\u00adson\u00adality and cre\u00adativity, all based on the knowl\u00adedge of art his\u00adtory, not only the\u00ado\u00adret\u00adical, but applied in the work\u00adshop. I felt that some\u00adthing was missing: the phi\u00adlos\u00adophy of art. I wanted to under\u00adstand what art is. I went to the Sorbonne and audited courses. I studied Idea, by Erwin Panofsky that opened the door of phi\u00adlos\u00adophy for me.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This was fol\u00adlowed, in 1989, when he became a monk at the Benedictine monastery of Saint Benoit sur Loire where, as he notes, he learned to \u201cdive in the silence, this is what I started to learn in the monastery. I feel very close to this life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In 1990, Haure arrived at Sasana Hasta Karya School in Bali, as a vol\u00adun\u00adteer, where he has taught a broad cur\u00adriculum. Bali and its cul\u00adture have, over the past 30 years, become an inte\u00adgral part of Haure\u2019s artistic vision whose sen\u00adsi\u00adtivity to his Asian sub\u00adjects reminds one of that of the Japan-based French wood\u00adblock artist Paul Jacoulet (1896\u20131960), espe\u00adcially with his indi\u00advidual fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtion.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But Haure\u2019s art is also touched by the rich spirit and tech\u00adniques of a wide range of artists including Edgar Degas (1834\u20131917), espe\u00adcially the freedom of his pastel draw\u00adings; the aca\u00addemic and romantic ortho\u00addoxy of Ingres (1780\u20131867); the courage of the free life without com\u00adpro\u00admise of Vincent van Gogh (1853\u20131890), the Balinese fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtion of Willem G. Hofker (1902\u20131981), and the char\u00adcoal draw\u00adings by the Singaporean artist Teng Nee Cheong (1951\u20132013).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Such artists have taught him that he stick to one place to examine it closely, for as he says, \u201cI prefer to go deeper in the same place than travel around to dis\u00adcover every \u2018lieu commun\u2019 of each place. I don\u2019t like the sur\u00adface, I prefer diving.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n But even as he is in one place, Haure\u2019s vision is not rigid. It is full of the spice of life and not clich\u00e9s. It is full of the spirit of adven\u00adture that sent him on his voyage of dis\u00adcovery so many years ago and one that has always remained with him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As he says, \u201cI had a chance to move [from France] to dis\u00adcover a new cul\u00adture. Almost 30 years of living in Bali teaches me how rel\u00ada\u00adtive a cul\u00adture is. The uni\u00adver\u00adsality of beauty removes them. I am happy to be born after the European modern his\u00adtory of painting. I get freedom from all these painters. They freed the lan\u00adguage of forms. But for me, they did not go far enough. Learning how to make chaos is one thing but being aware of the beauty that appears in that chaos is another.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haure\u2019s sec\u00adular and spir\u00adi\u00adtual life nur\u00adtures his reflec\u00adtive nature, where silence and action are sin\u00adgu\u00adlarly united. He sees dig\u00adnity and beauty in simple inti\u00admate scenes just as he cap\u00adtures alien\u00adation among the poor and a time\u00adless beauty among the priv\u00adi\u00adleged. But he does not judge, rather he allows his lyrical abstrac\u00adtion and fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtion to guide us on his artistic journey.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One sees this in Waiting for the King (2018)<\/em>, which is a pleasant scene of two boys waiting expect\u00adedly for the King to pass by. The lux\u00adu\u00adrious designs of draped fab\u00adrics speak to Haure\u2019s love of color and abstrac\u00adtion, but it speaks to the inti\u00admacy of the still moment, too, as in Colors from Indonesia (2006)<\/em> where a beau\u00adtiful girl leans for\u00adward to touch her foot gently with out\u00adstretched fin\u00adgers and Coral Reefs (2019)<\/em> where a young woman with her back to us is swept up in pen\u00adsive mood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haure builds ten\u00adsion in this work through the muted colors and wash of her dress and such phys\u00adical details as her out\u00adstretched hand and a bent foot.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The acces\u00adsi\u00adbility of Haure\u2019s art is refreshing as is the ethe\u00adreal quality that trans\u00adports viewers into very pri\u00advate worlds. It is in the richly col\u00adored and romantic dream-like Gemini (2004)<\/em>, where the dom\u00adi\u00adnant rich blues and muted reds and the flowing line add to an unusual ten\u00adsion. The lav\u00adishly detailed and col\u00adorful fes\u00adtive group in the work enti\u00adtled Unless You Know Another Way (2020)<\/em> rein\u00adforces the dream-like char\u00adacter of Haure\u2019s art, as does the dra\u00admatic abstract-fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtive work Duality XIII (2008)<\/em>, an unusual union of human and animal con\u00adtact in his art.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This is in stark con\u00adtrast to the per\u00adsonal moment of the two women of Duality II (2006)<\/em> and the single female in When Grace Abounds (2010)<\/em>. There is a striking hint of the English Pre-Raphaelite ideal of beauty in these work\u00ads\u2014and many other\u00ads\u2014that car\u00adries Haure\u2019s dreamy abstract nar\u00adra\u00adtive along, and though they are touched with the sense of romance they are, at least to my mind, not sen\u00adti\u00admental. \u201cAb\u00adstract painting is stronger than any other paint\u00adings in emo\u00adtion, and drawing that is also stronger than a fin\u00adished work. I mix these two tech\u00adniques together,\u201d<\/em> he says. The results, as we see, are deeply appealing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Among Haure\u2019s most beguiling works is the dip\u00adtych such as Both Sides of the Story (2011<\/em>) and the trip\u00adtychs such as Duality XVII (2008)<\/em> and Duality XIX<\/em>, Waves in the Sky (2011)<\/em>, which is a dream. [The model for all the fig\u00adures is Haure\u2019s wife, Reizka.] These works speak to Haure\u2019s sec\u00adular and reli\u00adgious sides.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The sec\u00adular is the everyday nar\u00adra\u00adtive, formal and informal, of the people por\u00adtrayed. And in the manner in which the works are framed, the panels sug\u00adgest reli\u00adgious altar\u00adpieces found in numerous Catholic churches. Haure\u2019s arti\u00adsanal skill and atten\u00adtion to the detail in the making of the panels is some\u00adthing he achieved during his studies at \u00c9cole Boulle almost 40 years ago. In these works there are very human and per\u00adsonal dia\u00adlogues taking place in sub\u00addued set\u00adtings that recall old sepia pho\u00adtographs, where his wash sug\u00adgests time past.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Looking at his fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtion here, one has a sense of the nar\u00adra\u00adtive extending far beyond the edge of the paint\u00adings\u2019 frames as one finds in reli\u00adgious altar\u00adpieces of bib\u00adlical scenes. The entire work is a com\u00adplex nar\u00adra\u00adtive journey of which we have but a glimpse, making viewers voyeurs of pri\u00advate worlds.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n One may be looking for a mes\u00adsage in Haure\u2019s works but as he says, \u201cI have no mes\u00adsage. I don\u2019t want to change the world, only to fight to keep my art alive. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am not judging the world or people in my art. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The only thing I can say is \u2018I want to see the other side.\u2019\u201d The world now, he notes, has become a place where every\u00adthing has become \u201can object for com\u00admer\u00adcial pur\u00adposes, human life included. If I touch some kind of truth, by acci\u00addent, emo\u00adtion, beauty, spir\u00adi\u00adtual con\u00adnec\u00adtion, or love will come alive. It is the con\u00adse\u00adquence of my actions, not the inten\u00adtion.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n And as for the feeling of mys\u00adtery in his vision, his mixed\u00admedia mate\u00adrials lend them\u00adselves to this. But it is not some\u00adthing that Haure goes out to do, for mys\u00adtery is not cre\u00adated by the brush or a pencil, it emerges of its own accord as the artist works.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI can\u2019t say that I wish to do some\u00adthing in my art,\u201d<\/em> Haure says. \u201cWhat I do is pre\u00adpare the con\u00addi\u00adtions, spe\u00adcially for the wash step, where some \u2018event\u2019 may happen. I mean a form of lan\u00adguage even. Using all the tools I have (colors, tex\u00adture, lines, con\u00adtrast, bal\u00adance, har\u00admony), I put every\u00adthing together in a kind of chaos. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Sometimes, some\u00adthing unusual appears, a new \u2018music\u2019 in the lan\u00adguage of forms can be heard. I need to be careful. It is so easy to destroy it by adding my own will to it. If I use my will, I fail.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Jean-Philippe Haure\u2019s search for beauty is ongoing, some\u00adthing that will insin\u00aduate itself into all his art. The search for beauty is a tough taskmaster for it demands every\u00adthing from the artist\u2019s per\u00adson\u00adality and skill, vision, and spirit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As Haure says,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cBeauty is a place to rest, and is not joyful. Sometimes it pro\u00advokes a fright that makes us move away. It\u2019s the appear\u00adance of the inef\u00adfable, the lan\u00adguage of the unspoken. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Beauty accepts no com\u00adpro\u00admise. When working on my wash and trying to make the model appear clearly, I have to make so many deci\u00adsions (choosing lines instead con\u00adtrast, changing the color or the sat\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtion, using a wash tex\u00adture as a fig\u00adu\u00adra\u00adtive part, adding a white line, cov\u00adering an area, erasing some details, and so on. <\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n I think that all these deci\u00adsions, when added together, have an uncom\u00adpro\u00admising effect. Paintings that are not suc\u00adcessful have hesi\u00adta\u00adtion and mawk\u00adish\u00adness.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Haure sees his world forever on the move. In his art he seeks to reach out beyond the sur\u00adface to describe a Bali that is rich in spirit.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n As he says, \u201cThe world we don\u2019t see always reminds you of the mag\u00adical, cer\u00ade\u00admonies, rites, sac\u00adri\u00adfices, offer\u00adings, beauty and fer\u00adtility.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n In any search there are sur\u00adprises and delights, suc\u00adcesses and dis\u00adap\u00adpoint\u00adments. Jean-Philippe Haure\u2019s embrace of the search for grace is filled with these, which is why his art is deeply indi\u00advidual.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/jean-philippe-haure.art\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/image-1.png\")
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