Gilt - Gilles Thiebault

After a professional activity in graphic arts and multimedia as well as a multidisciplinary artistic activity, at 70 years old, Gilt freed himself from all technical constraints and rediscovered Indian ink and the single stroke of the brush.

In the early 80s, Gilt encountered the Zen of the Soto school and practiced it at the historic dojo of Pernety in Paris, founded by Master Taisen Deshimaruu. Then in 1983 Gilt learned calligraphy and Chinese ink painting with the Korean Master Ung-No Lee (이응노) considered one of the main contemporary Korean painters. This is why we find in Gilt's works this refined graphic signature of black and white and flat colors as well as the search for the right line.

When he makes stays or workshops whether at the Parc de Maulévrier, at the seaside or elsewhere, Gilt observes, makes sketches, draws on the spot or photographs. Back at the studio he makes his ink with his ink sticks and his stone then concentrates on breathing, the breath, and with a precise gesture paints "from the void".

“I often create improbable landscapes based on those I have seen."

The Single Brushstroke is the origin of all things, the root of all phenomena. For the Single Brushstroke, in fact, embraces the universality of beings; painting results from the reception of ink; ink, from the reception of the brush; the brush, from the reception of the hand; the hand, from the reception of the mind: just as in the process by which Heaven engenders what the Earth then accomplishes, so everything is the fruit of a reception. Likewise, the Single Brushstroke presides over the union of the brush-Yang and the ink-Yin, the combination of which engenders the infinity of pictorial phenomena.

… from the notion of emptiness.

The void is not an inert presence, it is traversed by breaths connecting the visible mode to the invisible world. The stroke of the brush is one and multiple. Thus, the artist joins the gestures of creation. Spontaneously and without retouching. The play of the brush is dominated by the breath. When the breath is, the vital energy is, then the brush truly engenders the divine.

Shitao (1642-1707) - The words of the painting of the Bitter Pumpkin Monk.