MeThod
The first inspiration comes from the attention paid to our physical environment, both structural and natural, to the incessant variations of atmosphere, to the effects of time, wear and tear, corrosion that alter and modify the material. The transformation, constitutes for me, visual poetry. I feel "called" by this sensory environment which makes a spectacle of itself and offers me textures, nuances, compositions, traces, oppositions and harmonies. But if my work is anchored in the material, it opens up to its own pictorial exploration, where the codes become more complex and free.
For me, the abstract is a personal, free formulation, coming from the depths of oneself, where impressions, sensations, emotions, interpretations, beliefs, heritage and dreams come together, shaping the structure of our unconscious. The work is therefore the result of an internal process, a "distillation" which suggests its origin is difficult to identify, a process in which our critical sense, our influences, our rationality, our doubts, our ego, our social and temporal anchorage intervene. I find this process, at once mystifying, fascinating, complex and difficult to explain. The practice is dichotomous: while I am an actor, I am also a spectator of what is happening, accepting that I cannot control everything.
In the end, in what seems gratuitous, random, fortuitous, there is something elusive, something difficult to explain: colours respond to each other, call each other, compositions balance each other out, suddenly becoming powerful, evocative, sensitive, vibrant. It seems that there are "laws of nature" in there. The artist explores and plays with these mysterious rules, provoking harmony or dissonance, strength or softness, agitation or calm. The abstract wants to go to the very essence of all this, beyond the contents, beyond the explicit messages, it goes to the heart of the visual and sensory unconscious.
In an obsessive way, I seek to understand, reproduce, decline. In constant exploration, I will apply coatings, seeking to make the layers interact, make them react to each other; sometimes I will scratch, rub, trace and seek the patina, the harmonious irregularity; at other times, I will seek to delicately apply thin layers, seeking the translucent, the light blur, a little like a fine coat of snow on a landscape, producing a diaphanous reading. I think I am trying to understand, to explore the "spirituality of matter", with this back and forth between my inside (the scaffolding of my personality and my soul) towards my outside (the world and perception).
As I evolve, I try to reduce the subject more and more, seeking to bring together silence and presence, in a form of evidence and simplicity. However, I do not exclude anything, I never spare an experience that calls me, I let myself be guided and I wait to see and perhaps to understand this artistic wandering that tries to reveal me.
My techniques are varied, I work on canvas, wooden frames, paper, I also produce three-dimensional works, each of these practices feeding into the others. The possibilities are quite different , depending on the techniques and supports used. I like to observe where it leads me each time and understand what are the common denominators.
"Widely shown, published, and celebrated painter Stéphane Meier takes the viewer on a dive into crystalline pools of color-blocks and shapes. In his Kandinsky meets Rothko-style paintings, Meier’s geometric patterns are met with bricks, lines and whorls of color which offer a softening and dappling effect to the otherwise angular compositions. The range of his work is vast as he works with paper cut-outs, sculpture and paint, but many of his pieces reflect on a common theme: the passing of time and its effect on physical matter.
Meier’s sculptures feature various materials that he molds and shapes into structures tall and winding, looming and spindly. With his work, Meier aims to question the language of visuality seeking to “... identify the strength of the compositions, the dialogue of the layers, the nuances, the line, the trace.” Beginning his art practice as an inquiry into matter, Meier used various materials such as wood, mineral coatings, pigments, and metals to explore the mystery of how things came to be the way they are, their integrity and how they change over time. His style has evolved to a more abstract practice, using the pictorial plane to survey his influences, impressions, and memories."
ARTmine from Agora Gallery New York
