The work of Patrice Vermeille is situated, at least in appearance, between a fantastical figurative and an abstract modulated according to a more-or-less secret narrative, present in ãintertextä in each of his compositions. As José Pierre so masterfully explains following several conversations with the artist, at the beginning is a referential work dated 1802, ãThe Tombä, by Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (1767-1824), painter of the Revolution than of the Empire, therefore of neoclassic and pre-romantic history, who employs formal as well as narrative superposition. Consequently, saturation operates on many levels drowning the spectator in visual, heroic and unreal sensations. Therefore, a true process of remodeling is put into action, as in ãTomb of Girodet I & IIä dated 1976, in the sense understood by the Surrealists, another influence that has always intrigued the artist. The possibility of distorting reality enables the artist to satisfactorily continue his research in the sphere of imagination via a particular motif, either landscaped, literary, referential to art history, even anecdotal, or then again positioned in modern times with computer-generated images.
 

This singular positioning, based on a pictorial tradition whose sources are historical and sometimes mythological, immediately makes one think of David who looked for his models in Renaissance art, but also of Delacroix, an historical painter par excellence. Closer to us is Kandinsky as well as American abstract expressionism which certainly influenced his catalogued beginnings, see ãA naître IVä (ãWaiting to be born IVä), dated 1968, comic strips as a genre and the study of engraving as an unavoidable practice. It is in this fusion of styles and periods that he prepares an operational pictorial field, often unappreciated throughout the various stages of his career for the specialists made their evaluations in accordance with current events and trends. However, in his work Patrice Vermeille takes inspiration from these effects only the better to avoid them. His ability to paint is well inscribed in the above-mentioned currants but extends beyond, and constantly reinterprets them as in ãPainting Iä dated 1986 which amounts to a powerful abstraction. 
 

The example of Kandinsky is most fascinating with respect to the heterogenenousness of his pioneering work in the domain of the avant-garde. In fact, didnât the inventor of the abstract actively contribute to expressionism with ãDer Blaue Reiterä, all the while extolling research of the spiritual in art, without forgetting the constant reference to images in Russian folklore. There again the similitude appears between a figure of modernity and the complexity involved in his classification. The large planes floating in space found in the works of 1920?30, such as in the famous painting ãYellow-Red-Blueä of 1925, there too testify to a spatiality that subtly inspired Patrice Vermeille in ãFragments IIä, a painting dating from 1983.
 

From a parallel we should examine from a historical point of view, appears the idea of an ensemble of practices linked to certain references indirectly linked to Narrative Fiction (in the 1960âs). This specific period allows us to take an interest in certain works of Jacques Monory, notably ãFragile nº 6ä, definitely of a later period being dated 1985 and which, originating in images of an automobile accident, employs the notions of dispersion and scattering so dear to Vermeille. Let us not neglect either the works of Jacques Poli or those of Hervé Télémaque with their colorful waverings or Erro and his swarming pictures. Positioning ourselves on a merely formal level we can again point our research in the direction of certain contemporary comic strip authors such as Druillet in ãGames XXIIIä, published in 1979 or Moebius with the two quasi-ectoplasmic characters of ãDouble IIä of 1975. There again universes that are more or less heroic and more or less in expansion attempt to render their pace via graphics that are often bizarre and evocative. The notion of extreme spatiality in Vermeilleâs work combines with themes dear to science fiction and results in the composition of staggering stellar spaces such as in the sumptuous and incandescent series of the ãNebulaeä dating from 1981.
 

As to the pragmatic use of techniques employed in engraving (etching, lithography, silk screening) and in the production of prints, the artist exploits a permanent perception of a to and fro between reproducible arts and those considered unique (paintings, drawings and water colors). We encounter again the general themes the artist uses to irrigate his work but with a certain number of imperceptible variations as in ãIn Expansionä, an etching from 1971 or in ãIssus de lâeauä (ãSprung from Waterä) dated 1990. 
 

This dispersal of genres is present in the distribution of planes through a clever use of color. The tormented and tortured forms of the impalpable actors dissolve into the pictorial lands of a suggested reality. It is with this nonprecision of places and situations that the inheritance of the unconscious takes over, liberated however from the heavy ideological mantle desired by André Breton. We are reminded of the inert landscapes of Yves Tanguy with his admirable ãJour de lenteurä(ãSlow Dayä) dated 1937 or also of certain works by Masson and his separated bodies, and finally of the limp forms of Dali. The metaphysical knife-edges slice forms out of space as in ãStudy Iä from 1987 that engages the spectator in a severe explosion of the scene. The movement and its decomposition take their place in a possible allusion to Futurism with artists such as Giacomo Balla and his ãMercury passing in front of the sunä of 1914, a spatial and planetary positioning that brings to mind certain of Vermeilleâs works, as well as those of Umberto Boccianni or Carlo Carra.
 

If ãNest VIä dated 1995, illustrates the roundness of a potential world where a criss-crossed sphere appears to contain a globe that is ready to explode, Patrice Vermeille also questions the gender of angels through a reinterpretation of Renaissance Putti. ãPutto I & IIä from 1999 testify in their own way to a stylized figuration where the sharp lines of the wings shoot the spectator with conceptual arrows. Escaping from conventions the pastel colored aerial ballet bids us beyond genres to an inevitable transposition from the church to the universe.
 

Installed in his computer graphics research, the artist exchanges his traditional canvas for virtual representation. In a field still being explored arises the perennial question of the pertinence of the developing contemporaneousness of images, their animation and their positioning in literary or popular culture. This research by means of a new medium excites Vermeille, who sees in it, new possibilities. Therefore the series of the ãDelugeä realized in 1994 and reproduced by the process of thermal sublimation or again the work ãPlan de coupe IIIä (ãSection IIIä) of 1996, labeled a ãcommentary sculptureä, based on a work of pencil and watercolor on paper from which emerges a computer treatment combined with strong surrealising influences. 
 

Nevertheless, I will base my conclusion on a recent painting ãThe Nest VII or the Last Judgementä from 2000. In it we find all the characteristics of this creator, staging diverse fragments from the ãTombä that have become Proustian throughout the sessions, playing with pictorial stratification, color and cinematographic depth, without neglecting the astonishing ability of contributing to the emergence of unexplored territories. Patrice Vermeille accoucheur of a projection of the mind to be represented always and again.

Christian Skimao