Murielle Argoud
Murielle Argoud was born and raised in Lyon. Already in her early childhood she devoted herself intensively to painting, later also to writing, a fascination which she took over the years.
She studied art and painting at art academies and private schools in Paris, Lyon, Nuremberg, and Basel.
After several years abroad and many years in Arlesheim as a painter and course instructor, she settled with her family on Lake Geneva, but always with the feeling of having arrived only temporarily.
Her constant urge for new impulses leads her to lakes, oceans, waters in all their forms.
Murielle Argoud can already look back on a considerable oeuvre and a large exhibition activity: more than 50 solo exhibitions in Paris, Geneva, Hamburg, Basel, Zurich, among others, and participation in numerous international art fairs, New York, Taipei, Cologne, Zurich. Her works are in private collections and public institutions, as well as an altarpiece in a chapel near Geneva. Murielle Argoud lives and works mainly between Lake Geneva and her studio in Ticino.
"As a contemporary artist, she refers to a philosophical background which accompanies the message of her works explicitly or implicitly. However, her thoughts are always closely related to the forms of expression in art."
Dr. B. Riggenbach
Murielle Argoud: Ambroisie / Oil, pigments, white gold on canvas / 140 x 100 cm / 2019
"My work for this particular exhibition is inspired by the Greek philosopher Heraclitus: "Everything flows to infinity...eternally - Pantha Rhei", the original principle of everything real being in eternal flow. Water, the force of Life, the breath of infinity and transcendence are the themes that I like to explore. The light-water emerges in different phases of incarnation in analogy with the dawn of time. The indigo and black are transcended by the eternal flow. The water-light, in perpetual motion, allows a way to go beyond appearances.
To express that idea authentically, I painted on the shores of waters of all kinds; oceans, seas, lakes, stunts. I blend into the elements of water, air, light, rock in order to understand and feel their own essence of life. More than ten years of traditional art studies, working with masters of Goethe’s colour theory and a lifetime of artistic research have led me to the alchemical processes. My technique and quest fulfil a deep metamorphosis. I realise my ideas by means of expression like sand, gold, lava, melted stone, carbonised and hardened. The latter unique black leads to the depth, to the primordial ground, to the all including initial beginning. Sand represents and reflects all: Being, becoming and passing, duration and volatility, strength and weakness, humanity, microcosm and macrocosm.
In the interspaces, I interweave the different pigments like a rainbow of conjunction, coherence and unity. The structures in the paintings support these processes with balancing, condensing, dramatizing, calming, talking or keeping silent, unifying or opposing, in different ways but never indifferent!"
Murielle Argoud
Murielle Argoud: Seule la nuance fiance le Rêve au rêve (Paul Verlaine) / Oil, pigments, silver on wood / 100 x 100 cm / 2019
I wish to paint that which appears to be hidden behind physical manifestations:
Murielle Argoud
The caressing and whirling of the winds and the waves,
The dance of the Elements and the void abundant with stillness,
The life of scintillating light.
Where words cannot touch, the life of colour can merge with the heart of the beholder.
Let the gaze follow the undulating waves of colour, their timeless changes – not suggesting anything though, full of promise.
Creating stillness for the song of the painting to become audible
Creating stillness for deeper contemplation – no wish to analyse or understand.
To be ready to receive.