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Friday, Jan. 28, 2005
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Artistic master visits Newnan
lbianchi@thecitizennews.com The Center for Performing and Visual Arts of Coweta County in Newnan was jammed last week with lovers of fine art attending the opening reception of French painter Francoise Gilots rare exhibit of her contemplative abstracts. Following the exhibition, Gilot gave an enlightening lecture concerning the many major influences that have shaped her vision over several decades and through a dozen or more art movements. The auditorium was filled with patrons of every age group and from every walk of life. Paintings by Picasso, Matisse, Miro, Duboffet, Max Ernst, De Chirico, and Marc Chagall, all of whom Gilot had known and worked among, were deciphered and mused upon for the appreciative audience. The artist also shared many amusing anecdotes concerning her years along side these great names. Picasso had quite a competitive nature when up against others, she said. Before her lecture began the centers director, Don Nixon, introduced some of the areas public figures who expressed their thanks and welcomed her to Georgia. Newnan Mayor Keith Brady, Superintendent Of Education Blake Bass, the High Museums Michael Shapiro, and Don Phillips of BB&T who sponsored the event, all extended their warmest greetings to Gilot. Governor Sonny Perdue also sent a letter of welcome. The Centers Masterworks Chorus opened the evening by serenading the artist with a rendition of Georgia On My Mind. The privilege of showing Gilots artwork and her presence in Newnan was quite a coup for the center. I welcome you to this moment in history., Nixon Center told the packed house waiting to hear the words of Gilot. In an interview Friday after fielding questions from area high school art students, Gilot said her greatest influence was the artist De Stihl. I like to be elliptic, oblique or elusive, she stated in her essay, Art, Last Refuge of the Sacred. It is more important to elicit participation than to satisfy passivity, she added. From the searching questions put to her by the students, it looks like this is a maxim already in use. The artist answered each query in great detail getting to the heart of what moves a person to paint or draw. Questions like How important is it that your work be accepted or understood? and What characteristics do you think are most important in an artist? were some of the questions the inquisitive students asked. Gilot, who was born and raised in Paris, is now an American citizen residing in New York. The exhibition in Newnan is one of only four in the United States which she will be displaying her art. |
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2004-Fayette Publishing, Inc.
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