"The most important moments are when I paint in public. It is the joy of communion with another. A bit like being in love. What defines love is this tension between two people who share the same interest."
Georges Mathieu is a French painter and theorist known for initiating the Lyrical Abstraction and Informal Art movement in post-WWII Paris. He published several manifestos expounding the tenets of lyrical abstraction: the primacy of speed, refusal of references, an ecstatic state of mind. His work is characterized by a particular calligraphic and rhythmic quality which relates his works to the drippings of Jackson Pollock. Georges Mathieu’s personality, always driven by the desire to go beyond the notion of avant-garde, makes him the prototype of the artist celebrity of today. A provocateur to the media and a precursor to happenings, Georges Mathieu develops his gestural practice to the limit of performance and has sometimes worked in cinema.