Menton XXII, n°23

Patrick Drut is a “painter-philosopher” for whom painting is a form of thought. He was born in Lille in 1968 and studied visual arts, art history, and the philosophy of art. With 25 years of painting practice, he is an artist supported by La Malterie Arts Visuels in Lille.

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“Patrick Drut’s sketched snapshots are less fleeting than they appear. The framing is deceptively nonchalant. The gesture might reveal a sensitive rendering of landscapes and the bodies within them, were it not already itself the imitation of a representation initially recorded from viewpoints other than his own. Contrary to a personal gaze, he freezes in paint a minimal slice of time across inter‑personal gazes. To freeze in painting is to resist evanescent images. To freeze as a pictorial layer is to celebrate the precariousness of the visible world, however fragile it may be.”