Yves Clerc
19 Place de Longemalle, Geneva
Yves Clerc enjoys combining styles, including pictures made by others, in his paintings, having his paintings embroidered or collaborating with fashion designers. His work is in different collections around the world, notably in the collection of famous fashion designers such as Leïla Menchari. Leïla Menchari is a scenographer for Hermes, who asked Yves Clerc to present twelve works in twelve windows of Maison Hermes at rue du Faubourg Saint Honoré in Paris. Yves Clerc also collaborated with Irina Vitjaz, a renowned stylist of high fashion in Moscow who asked Yves to simulate a museum, with his work, for a fashion show. Some paintings were printed in large formats and embroidered by 'atelier Vitjaz'. Yves Clerc is inspired and always flirting with the fashion industry, the theatre and dance, but also the Florentine Mannerists or the Baroque paintings of the Cuzco School, as well as from a more recent period works by Albers.
Clerc created and mastered a painting technique where he superposes multiple layers which result in the paintings having the appearance of texture and depth. It is reminiscent of pointillism, but instead of dots, it is an endless series of small dashes of paint. The artist is always delighted to see admirers getting up-close inspecting the intriguing texture and colors of his work.
Yves Clerc is a mannerist artiste, he does not wish to imitate what is real, but rather tries to represent a vision of the world, where his art is rendered apparent by elongated forms, the saturation of colors and the tension of postures. A painting is like a door, a place of passage between two worlds, the real world and the represented one.
The Bailly Gallery has a long-standing collaborative history with the artist, since 1990 the Bailly Gallery has held a regular exposition of the artists' work in Paris and Geneva.