siitt Painting

Francois Merlet is a French Australian film director who works around the world. He has created his own signature with his unique style, creating moving images with a great sense of graphic composition and rich colour. With his paintings Francois loves playing with intricate curves, which connect rich colour onto Italian cotton canvases. His paintings and pastels are modern contemporary. ‘I love it when I put a white canvas on my wooden easel, set my iPod with music into my ears, pour myself a glass of red or white wine depending of the moment and allow the music to bring some images in my mind. I start to draw (first on small piece of paper) and as I turn side ways to the white canvas I allow the music to direct my hand. The feeling is fantastic to see the white canvas starting to have a face, a body, some hair, some eyes, some smile. Because of the sound I stay very close to the canvas with no sound from the outside world to disturb my creativity. The next step is the most exciting, intriguing and challenging, the moment when I will create the look of my painting by choosing the colour, usually decided on the go. And then the canvas slowly, slowly changes colour, the white is now a rich red crimson, a deep Australian sap green, a Cerulean blue, a carbon black, a yellow deep, a metallic light gold and, and, and… My brush is dancing on the canvas now with different motions, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. My breathing follows the direction of the line to be created. Sometimes breathing heavily to accentuate the wave crashing on the cliff and sometimes not breathing at all for the contour of the eyes. Then the moment of judgment arrives to decide if my painting is finished. The last touch white name with a fine brush on the corner of my painting.’ Francois’ paintings are a picture storybook of what is going on for him in his everyday life, sometimes in the present, sometimes the past and sometimes the future.