Sète, France —This is a journey into a secret forest. A forest of brightly colored, at times darkly colored, trees. These are trees rendered in a fashion that hovers between the figurative and the abstract. For as our climate evolves, the trees evolve with it. These are the paintings of French contemporary artist Pierre-Luc Poujol whose large format paintings are most often painted flat on the floor at nighttime— action painting, he calls it— often employing his drip technique in which the brush does not touch the canvas, and incorporating  pieces of branches, leaves and other elements of nature into them. The Musée Paul Valéry in the sparkling city of Sète on the south central Mediterranean coast of France is showcasing some 70 of his paintings and wood sculptures in an exhibition entitled Pierre-Luc Poujol Arborescences. 

It is a fitting title for the show as arborescence refers to any tree-like structure, usually somewhere between a shrub or a tree. The tree, the essence of nature. Pierre-Luc Poujol doesn’t only paint nature he uses it in his works of ethereal complex beauty. He makes his own tools for painting with tree branches and often makes his own pigments. The artist draws his inspiration from painters like Joan Mitchell and Jackson Pollock and his works are meant to incite people to look up since we are looking down most of the time now, he explained in a recent interview. 

Artist, painter, sculptor, Pierre-Luc Poujol paints nature with nature, and his works revolve around the mutual relationship between mankind and the environment. The result are extremely well-executed and eye-catching works that retain the viewer’s attention. He was recently named ambassador to the French non-governmental organization Coeur de Forêt which works to save forests and promote the forest and humankind throughout the world. Born in the wilds of the Cévennes mountains of south central France, Pierre-Luc Pujol spent many a holiday on his grandfather’s farm and subsequently did his high school studies in an agricultural school, all contributing to his awareness of the natural world around him. The artist currently hails from a sun-drenched region in southern France and works there in a studio framed in glass near the city of Montpelier, which collectors and gallery owners can visit by appointment. The exhibition at the Paul Valery Museum runs until May 26th. ©Trish Valicenti for The Gourmet Gazette. Musée Paul Valéry 148, rue François Desnoyer 34200, Sète France. Tel: +(33) 04 99 04 76 16 http://www.museepaulvalery-sete.fr.  See also: https://thegourmetgazette.com/2024/03/26/sumptuous-sete-on-and-in-the-sea/