COLOGNE.- Galerie Karsten Greve announces Écritures, mégalithes et cupules II, Loïc Le Groumellec’s 12th solo exhibition with the gallery. The exhibition presents a large selection of new paintings and works in ink and gouache on paper. In continuation with his previous work, the artist investigates notions of the sacred and spiritual in painting through a minimalist aesthetic.

The exhibition’s title Écritures, mégalithes et cupules describes the three elements that characterise Le Groumellec’s paintings: writing, images of megaliths, and physically rendered cup-shapes. The artist arranges these parts in multi-panelled displays, most often in form of the triptych. Thereby, he achieves a captivating conglomeration of contextual references and visual motifs.

Cupules (2023) is up-to-date the most prominent manifestation of Groumellec’s recently introduced motif: The painting consists of five parts, measuring 11,40 meters in width. Standing in front of, or walking along the painting, one obtains the impression of standing in front of a historical site. Le Groumellec transports this experience to a neutral space, creating an abstraction through the entirely white surface. The mythic notion remains as an allusive force emanating from the painting.

Le Groumellec discovered the “cupules”, or cup stones when visiting the Gavrinis megalithic monument. The cupules are small receptacles carved into rock whose significance remains unknown. Possibly they functioned as boundary markers, or a form of writing. Le Groumellec embraces this form in pursue of his reconstruction and reconsideration of a minimal aesthetic. Through physical elevations, the artist highlights the surface and the plane while introducing a haptic element. The monochrome becomes sensual and layered.

Already an established element in Le Groumellec’s formal repertoire, the megaliths relate to the artist’s home in Brittany and his use of pagan symbols for an expression of the spiritual. For Le Groumellec, painting and its reception are spiritual acts in themselves which he aims to capture through reduced forms – such as the megalith – and colours. The little cross painted on top of the megalith in Mégalithe et Écritures (2023), and other paintings, is both a historical fact and an artistic statement: In the Middle Ages, instead of destroying these Neolithic symbols, the catholic church mounted crosses on top of or carved them into menhirs and megaliths to bestow them with a Christian meaning. For Le Groumellec, moreover, the combination of horizontal and vertical form the definition of painting, whereby the artist, again, fuses historical symbol and personal pictorial language.

The Écritures in Le Groumellec’s work refer to a related phrase from the Capitularies of Charlemagne, commanding the destruction of all pagan symbols. The three words taken from the sentence – simulacrum, sacrilege, and anathema – for the artist, are analogous to painting, in that they refer to the necessary overcoming of pictorial traditions and the associated cycle of break and continuity. Seemingly endlessly reproduced, the words are by times legible, by times out of focus. Their repetition relates to ritual, again highlighting a spiritual element in the artist’s practice.

The Écritures often form the two outer panels of triptychs with cupules or a megalith placed in the centre. This arrangement vaguely recalls the aesthetic of a book, and alludes to the sanctity of the script. The triptych is Le Groumellec’s favourite display. As the traditional arrangement of Christian altar pieces, it constitutes another reference to the spirituality of the act and experience of painting. The new triptychs with cupules in the centre make the monochrome the main scene. This complete focus on the white forms equals a meditation and turns the paintings into portals to another vision.

Le Groumellec’s new gouaches and works on paper complement his investigations in painting. His Écritures and cupules on handmade paper are particularly elucidating: the paper enhances both the writing and the physical shapes, expanding the theme on a smaller scale. The coloured gouaches in vivid yellow and orange, on the other hand, offer a lively and more spontaneous approach to the prehistoric symbols.

The multiple juxtapositions of writing, monochrome planes, and the physical cupules presented in Écritures, mégalithes et cupules II create a painterly-spiritual universe. Through their large sizes, the paintings generate a physical experience, transforming the exhibition space into a temple – or cave – of thought and time traveling. Le Groumellec’s practice has formerly been described as a “minimalism in reverse”: in his new paintings, the artist imbues the monochrome with sign, gesture, and sensuality. Employing a minimalism with regards to the motif, Le Groumellec thus extracts a maximum of effect.

Loïc Le Groumellec was born in Vannes, Brittany, France, in 1957. He graduated in 1980 from the École de Beaux-Arts in Rennes and, in 1983, the Yvon Lambert gallery in Paris organised his first solo exhibition. His works can be found in prestigious private collections, and have been included in exhibitions of the CAPC in Bordeaux, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rennes and the Conservatoire National de Musique in Paris. They have also been displayed by major international institutions such as the New National Museum in Monaco, the French Institute in Cologne, Germany, the Hermitage Foundation in Switzerland, the Musée d'art contemporain in Montreal, Canada and the Juan Miró Foundation in Barcelona, Spain. Loïc le Groumellec has designed several theater sets, notably for the Basel theatre and the Opéra Garnier in Paris, and has participated in the creation of numerous illustrated books. Galerie Karsten Greve has been representing the artist since 1989. Loïc Le Groumellec lives and works in Paris.