Gérard Garouste

Gérard Garouste, born in 1946, is a major French painter and a master of uncompromising figuration. His painting, which draws its inspiration variously from mythology, literature, biblical narrative and Talmudic studies, does not seek to appeal. Rather, shunning neither aberrations nor deformations, nor mutilations or recompositions of the figure, it relentlessly questions and unsettles certitudes. It is disturbing, but in the manner of a game whose rules are constantly being reinvented. The retrospective dedicated to him by the Centre Pompidou provides an opportunity for visitors to appreciate the rich and unique career of Garouste, this `restless' artist whose life - which has been characterised by study but also by madness - and enigmatic works borrow from each other in a striking dialogue.