Le Musée Imaginaire

Tributes to Iconic Painters -
Each work: acrylic and oil on wood panels 62 cm X 62 cm
In this series of paintings "Tributes" to the painters who have enriched and nourished him, the artist writes lives like icons—or even hagiographers. It is indeed writing as much as painting. Isn't it said that one "writes" an Icon? By revisiting the famous works of artists, creating a sort of "painted collage," mixed with invented or real texts that retrace the essence of these painters' careers, Luc Templier seeks to place the "viewer" in an emotional context. Each painting is the quintessence of the work, as if that were all that remained after having wrung out the Master's canvases.
Here again, in a single glance, through a recomposition, he seeks to give the impression of being able to grasp a destiny, a story, to arouse admiration, then contemplation.
Each of our lives is a puzzle whose pieces don't necessarily fit together, some of which are missing, or others deliberately hidden. The puzzle is always an illusion.
The "Homage" paintings are iconic snapshots by Picasso, Magritte, Van der Weyden, Leonardo da Vinci… other variations were possible. The "series" could expand and create, with other painters, a fresco in the form of an "Imaginary Museum" (Malraux), a subjective puzzle, but one that Luc Templier's powerful figuration and dazzling technical mastery make essential.

The technique used (oil) is highly advanced, giving pride of place to ancient techniques and know-how in order, once again, through a certain quest for perfection and the desire for technical prowess, to awaken the viewer's emotions.