Meeting: Jean-Marie Bytebier

The Fontevraud Museum of Modern Art invites the Belgian artist Jean-Marie Bytebier to present a very coherent set of paintings and drawings within the permanent collections of the museum and in the old presbytery of the village.

“Rendez-vous” is a matter of dialogue, of meeting eyes. His paintings and drawings are inspired by photographs, impressions taken during walks and references to art history. At the museum, the works of Jean-Marie Bytebier resonate with the paintings and objects in the permanent collections, and are even inspired by several of them, produced during a residency in Fontevraud in December 2023. This working residency allowed him to soak up the atmosphere, the architectural context, the shapes and the colors that surrounded him. In the old presbytery, a domestic space with natural lighting and open to the outside, the artist's paintings cannot be seen in the same way as on the museum walls. Their placement above fireplaces, in cupboards, or even within an environment of XNUMXth century woodwork, influences the way these works are viewed.

“Rendez-vous” is therefore also an invitation addressed to the viewer to solicit their gaze during their visit. Jean-Marie Bytebier's painting lies on the border between abstraction and figuration. The way in which the artist reworks the landscape – he selects details, enlarges them, reverses the motif, removes the horizon line, scrapes or cuts out certain parts… – leads the viewer to reconsider the perception of his own environment and to approach the way artists construct their images.

Thus, by giving "Rendez-vous" to Jean-Marie Bytebier, he gives us an appointment with art and proves to us that these works and these places that we think we know well can still surprise us.