GEORGES LE CHEVALLIER – PAINTIGS 1998 - 2002
By Daniel Burns

Sykes Gallery at Millersville University
Millersville, Pennsylvania
November 4 – December 12, 2002

Georges Le Chevallier has the ability to absorb an enormous quantity of visual information and make sense of it through the process of mixed media painting. His synthesis of imagery, text and meaning is aided by his design sense and fed by his life experience. References to his past fill his work with layers of information that read almost like a journal, revealing his interests, his journeys and mostly his attempt to understand what it means to be an artist in the 21st century.

Le Chevallier’s life experience, like his mixed media paintings, is richly layered. He was born in Paris, France in 1966. His childhood was spent in San Juan, Puerto Rico where he grew up speaking Spanish. His ties with Europe were maintained by spending summers with his father’s family in France. French became his second language. When he was a teenager he moved with his family to Los Angeles, California where he was introduced to a third culture and language. It was in Los Angeles that he discovered his interest in art. After high school he traveled to Spain to study painting at the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid. In the 1990’s he moved to New York City, received a Master of Fine Arts degree from Hunter College, and began making a life for himself as an artist. He has since traveled to Asia, Africa, and Europe for exhibitions of his work and artist residencies. Even though Le Chevallier considers himself a painter, he has perhaps gained greater notoriety for his installations and his part in public art projects, including the highly publicized Cow Parade, which featured his work in Houston, New York and Kansas City.

Knowledge of Le Chevallier’s childhood in a household of mixed traditions, customs and attitudes, and awareness of his international travels, help in the understanding of his art. Le Chevallier creates paintings by using a layering process in which he constructs with fragments that represent his history. He builds surfaces by adhering materials, used are city maps, news articles, post cards, and photographs of friends, politicians and naked women. Fragments of his background are found in the materials selected. There are references to patriotism, sex, sport and spirituality.

In addition to visual reminders of the artist’s history, he also uses text that spills onto the layered surfaces. Words in different languages appear as captions that move in waves across the canvas. The words and images contain contradictions and questions. It may be these contradictions and questions that cause Le Chevallier to create. “Without them,” he says, “there would be no cause to get out of bed in the morning.” He repeats the question mark in various works, most notably “Kerdojel,” a large stripped outdoor installation in Varoshaza Plaza, Balatonfured, Hungary. The question mark symbolizes his inquiry into life’s lessons and meanings. Le Chevallier demonstrates in his work that he does not the answers. Instead, he asks questions, some straight forward, others more tentative, fleeting or hard to put into words. For Le Chevallier, the question, not the answer, is the essence of art. This realization makes his work easier to trust, easier to suspend our own need for quick answers. His work engages the viewer in an attempt to decipher meaning. Experiencing his paintings is like being along with him on a journey. The journey is a search for understanding.

Among his most successful works are the triptychs, which take his assemblages of fragmented imagery further. This format allows the work to branch out horizontally, becoming chapters spun together to create stories that absorb and compel. The triptychs contain volumes of information for the viewer to swift through, unscramble and enjoy the visual sensations. “Known as Judas,” “El Perro,” “My Kite,” and “More Tears,” are among his most satisfying.

In addition to the collaged surfaces, Le Chevallier uses paint to layer colors, textures, patterns and flowing lines across the surface. The combinations of approaches are often jarring and at times disconnected. All seem quickly processed by the artist. They reflect a brief attention span, perhaps the artist’s, or perhaps the contemporary culture of the artist. They reflect the constant bombardment of stimulation, however shallow, from technological sources encountered by Le Chevallier and from simply being in the cities he has lived. In addition to being autobiographical, the work deals with bigger questions about information overload in the 21st century. Whether it is junk mail, roadside signage, or the endless stream of information made available through the Internet, it is difficult to avoid the numbing sensation that comes from such overload. Le Chevallier deals with the overload by making his somewhat frenzied paintings. He calls himself “just a painter caught in my times.” That description seems accurate. Le Chevallier’s work, like the art of others that came before him, is a reflection of the culture in which it is made. His paintings may remind the viewer of previous traditions, the fragments like early Dada, the sensations of color like medieval mosaics, the imagery and technique like Rauchenburg’s. But Le Chevallier’s paintings could not have come from any other experience other than his own. They come from the artist’s ability to look inward and outward and then respond. They belong to no one but Le Chevallier.


Daniel Burns is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Millersville University, and Director of the Sykes Gallery.