PHILIPPE COGNEE

From part its inimitable technique, Philippe Cognée's paintings are easy to identify. The dissolve of the wax obtained in the iron gives a texture, a smell and a blur become a trademark.
Philippe Cognée's paintings were exposed in major exhibitions, and are present in the collections of the biggest French institutions. However, his work does not stop in this support, nor in this technique. The work of Philippe Cognée is in fact much richer and gives a complex, as show of it its works on paper.
The drawing is not a preparatory work at the paint, but exists as a field of full exploration. Philippe Cognée develops through his works on paper a complementary language which becomes almost essential to the apprehension of its painted work. The works on paper raise subjects identical to paintings: architecture, landscape, crowd, vanity but in a more free way. While on painting the artist leaves an image or a photography, drawings on paper seem to be made on the deep or arise from the imagination. A sensation of immediacy gets free of works on paper, where from the first pencil strokes or the brush the drawing takes its final shape.
Besides, with the drawing, Philippe Cognée does not pass by all the stages orchestrated of the paint on painting. Of the drawing results a spontaneity which we do not find in its work on painting. The chance due to the iron is on paper replaced by a more free gesture, less confined in the procedures of realization. The wave of the hand is made visible contrary to the support on painting where by the technique, the intervention of the hand is not visible anymore.
If the furniture polish on painting is the result of a lot of experiment, we find this exploration of techniques on the paper through the diversification of the used materials: the watercolor, the charcoal, the pigment on paper photo, the ink and even sometimes the furniture polish. All these techniques spread on some white paper which structures and offers a frame on the subject, contrary on the paintings which work as all-over.
On paper as on painting, Philippe Cognée is inspired by familiar and commonplace views drawn from his geographical or personal environment (architectures, containers, objects, crowds, interiors). His pictorial techniques allow him to transcend the daily commonness, which becomes mysterious by losing the subject in the fuzziness. The painted artist or draws subjects which seem to live in him so much they are recurring. His themes also become a way to identify its work.
Through the works on paper exhibited, the Gallery Oniris suggests entering Philippe Cognée's universe, by bringing to light a rich and intimist work which the public begins only to discover, so becoming aware of all the area of his work.