Exposition : Les pariétales par Alain AZAD

From 6 November, 'Les Pariétales' by Alain Azad presents imaginary decorated caves, engraved into wood with gouges and painted in acrylic.

TEMPORARY EXHIBITION Les Pariétales: The Imaginary Decorated Caves of Alain Azad Friday 6 November to Sunday 7 March In his studio-cave, Alain Azad let his imagination take flight.

Through a distant memory, the artist has rediscovered some of the threads of the creative impulse that animated humans in the decorated caves of prehistory. Sometimes, amid the lines and traces, chance allusions to our own era creep in.

Beyond naturalism, the rather abstract character of Les Pariétales says something about our world; a certain aesthetic that is a symbol of an inner ethic. Isolated in his studio, the artist works under artificial light on wooden supports, accompanied by silence or music.

He imagines figures of ancestors living in the rock shelter beside a torrent, in the shade of the forest: an Aurignacian woman, an Aurignacian man.

It is not natural pigments and charred wood that leave marks on the walls, but gouges that incise the support and acrylic paints whose tones play with the light, bearing the technical hallmark of our age.

It is not a depiction of the animals of hunter-gatherers and a few symbols of their human group, but the vision of a contemporary artist revealing that the bond with nature is fragile. Where are the two figures going as they leave the cave under the moon?...

The genesis of Les Pariétales In 2005 (16–18 September), a symposium on the theme 'The Paths of Aurignacian Art in Europe' was held in Aurignac, organised by Nathalie Rouquerol, founder of the Musée-Forum. Alongside it, the exhibition 'L'homme-lion' shed light on Aurignacian art.

Alain Azad followed the discussions of the invited specialists and, long interested in the research activities of prehistorians, began to reflect on cave art. Thus was born a series entitled Les Pariétales.

They are paintings on wood inspired by the vision of decorated caves, numerous da