“I paint on the perimeter of death. As if I were driven by some other force. A pressure, a squeezing. I am unable to handle or control this urgency. As soon as the idea, the reflection presents itself, the picture is complete”, says the artist of his own creative process.
His works may be classified within four greater media: black-&-white photography (Silvana Mangano, Samuel Beckett), painted photography (Mick Jagger, Pascal Greggory), textual photography (Vladimir Horowitz) and paintings (“Le Soleil Rouge”- Red Sun).
The oeuvre of François-Marie Banier comprises a visual exploration of the manifold possibilities of expression of the human face, as the author portrays via photographic documentation people’s passionate views of life. The photography and painted photographs within the exhibition capture at the end of the lens the stars of Italian and French cinema in their own private milieu, their playfulness at home without make-up. Marcello Mastroianni, Isabelle Adjani and Silvana Mangano each appear in a gently vibrating space where poetry, dance and music attend to each other. Apart from these, elderly people, so-called “dear figures”, engaging everyday passers-by, children, Parisian streets and the café society appear in the images of François-Marie Banier.
His store of devices for his paintings of expressive effect manifests a relation to the movements of twentieth century French and German Fauvism, which cultivated spontaneity and action art. “I paint what I feel, not what I see,” remarked Banier during a conversation in Paris with Martin d’Orgeval. This ars poetica alludes to an artist who may not be easily integrated.
