" Tony Soulié does not paint a flower but a ghost of flower. An extravagant star, a tentacular muleta, a volcanic spit, a Pasiphaé's tongue, a beaming crater, a glowing piece of grit, a horned head, the Vouivre or the Sphinx's face, Holopherme's head severed by Judith, John the Baptist's one brandished by Salome dancing. A face of winding sheet. Ghosts are countless. The artist makes things return. Works of art are our own ghosts coming back. A shroud dampened with our dreams. Which nuptial sheet exhibits the blood flower of the brainwave ?
The purpose is not to figure a flower but to display an infinite potential of figurability. "
Patrick Grainville (extrait)
Patrick Grainville was born in 1947 in Villiers, Normandy. Holder of the Agrégation degree in litterature, he won the Goncourt prize in 1976 with Les Flamboyants (Le Seuil). Among many books, he wrote L'orgie la neige, Paradis des orages, L'atelier du peintre, the Atlantique et les amants, La joie d'Aurélie ... He just published in 2006 his twentieth novel : La main blessée. He wrote monographs and prefaces for many painters : Bernard Louédin, Egon Schiele, Georges Mathieu, Richard Texier, Jean-Paul Chambas, Lydie Arickx, Gérard Simoën, Erro. He has also worked with photographers like Lucien Clergue or François Rousseau. But he has been mostly working with Tony Soulié, for whom he produced texts, poems, fictions and analysis. Fabrications of litterary and pictural objects.
