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Pol Fraiture

“Créer la beauté, telle est notre unique mission en dehors de toute considération morale ou sociale.
Une peinture, un dessin, une oeuvre d’art, est toujours un coin de la vie, vu à travers un tempérament, car elle est toujours colorée du temps et de celui qui l’a faite. Victor Hugo a toujours dit : les artistes sont des nuages qui guident les hommes vers l’étoile d’un avenir meilleur. Tandis que Baudelaire écrivait : ils sont des phares, témoins lumineux de la misère des hommes” – Pol.

Next exhibition :
Nov. 2023

Lorelei Gallery, Sablon

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Pol and his technique

atelier_picPol Fraiture was born in Brussels on 17 December 1946.

He started painting when he was still a child, and from the age of 13 he won several painting contests. His first exhibition took place in an art gallery of Namur (Belgium). Since 1966, Pol exhibited internationally, including Brussels, Paris, Geneva, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Namur, Damme, Knokke, Bandol, Nassau and the USA.

In 1975 he took part in « Art pour Tous » in Brussels and was awarded one Golden Medal (Jury Award) and two Silver Medals (Press and Public Awards).

The exhibitions in Geneva (1976 and 1978) and in Paris (1980 and 1981) were held under the auspices of the General Consulate and the Belgian Embassy. He passed away in Brussels on 8 November 1981.

Studies

Brussels :

• Académie des Beaux-Arts: Arts décoratifs, Dessin, Arts graphiques (Magna cum laude)

Paris :

• Beaux-Arts: Histoire de l’Art

The technique

Pol Fraiture developed his own technique over several years.

His paintings reveal a hidden world unveiling itself progressively as one approaches them.
He covers the canvas with several layers of oil colour. After he has painted the main features, he “engraves” his painting with a palette knife in the fresh colour as he develops it.

The contrast is amazing. It is as though the picture is lit from the inside. This is his sunken “super-impressionist” style.

His “luminist” pictures allow the viewers to enter his own world, to go “further”, up to the “unlimited”. The artist’s vitality, passion and deep sensitivity pass on to the viewer who remains under the deep feeling of this atmosphere of mystery and poetry.

 

A few works

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« My pictures are a voyage of discovery. I do not start from the forms, foundations of images, to create a shapes-colours harmony, but I let myself be carried away by the world of the colours with its richness of tints and shades. As, during wakefulness, the conscious lets itself be attracted by the universe of outside feelings, my painting makes me penetrate into the deepness of that forest of unthought-of of wealth: the colours. These become the true source of the forms that emerge from the depths of my ego. The forms I feel within it arise in me as representations. A whole universe of sensations, often concealed by the world of the forms, is revealed to me. I live a waking dream.

I disregard the representation of the forms suggested by the senses – the conscious ego – and penetrate into the unreality of the harmony of colours – the unconscious ego. There I discover that things are without represented forms. I have left the external forms evoked by my senses and intellect to approach the inner, secret world of the deep ego. In my pictures, the world of mental images becomes the true reality.

If I still represent some forms (heads, flowers, landscapes, and so on…) graphically, it is as a means of communication with the public. Otherwise some people would not by themselves discover that “hidden world” of colours.

When they look at my pictures, some people see only a mass of colours. If one goes too fast, they see nothing; they do not discover the interior life of the colors. » Pol Fraiture (translated by C. DE VILLE)