« JEAN-PIERRE RUEL
1970 -

The eyes of the figures rarely meet in Ruel’s works, but the unity of the compositions seems to bring them together. This admirable identifying of the pictorial depiction with its subject infuses the work with a rare spirituality. Ruel creates a sense of warmth and of generosity with his brushstroke, at once rich and confident and touched with spontaneity. The artist comes back over his subject time and time again, letting the viewer watch him work through a shape in the traces he leaves behind. Ruel revels in the medium of oil in all its splendour and in all its diversity. The artist’s preference for painting on a large scale is evident, but in his new series he has also created smaller works in gouache on paper, which offers him a chance to work with another medium of interest to him and which suits the artist’s style admirably at that size. »