Didier Drullion

Aged 65, born in Nîmes, Didier Ventabren is still living in the south of France. He has been painting since he was 13.

“An artist’s name which makes a reference to the Mediterranean Sea, in this particular melting pot where weaved links specific to time, to man, to life, to death, which created cultures which followed one another, collided, fought, grew rich one by the others. A complex history makes one of the “navel” of world, who allow to end in crossed simultaneous looks and thus maybe universals on things. The choice of this artist’s name maybe led to assert more specifically this link in places, people, cultures which at the bottom line define me quite little.

The way of translating and of experimenting the confrontations of moment, of translating the ideas and their artistic expression which may be able to provoke the improbable meeting of elements so contradictory as the sand, the water and the fire, the paper and the metal. Life is not smooth, my expression is not either.

Any work builds itself with compared with some references the influence of which is more or less visible. For me some names are important: Velázquez to Basquiat including Goya, Ensor, Will Know, Tapiés, Pagès, Pollock or Vieira da Silva. And probably all those of whom I am not necessarily conscious.

I agree with the idea that a place, a person, have an objective appearance, they are also a book of stories, and emotions. “”When a griot dies, it’s a library that burns!”