Born in 1939
For nearly thirty years, the essential constant of his work has been the pictorial research, the antinomy between color and line. Jean-Marie Haessle has always explored the multiple possibilities that painting offers. His latest works are a game of fluid or material color patches, of diversified hues, lights and density, superimposed in a weft defined by the surface of the canvas.
"Painting is an act of personal discovery. The eternal question of "Who are we?" has been the foundation of all art (and religion) since the dawn of human existence. I ask myself this question, again and again, painting after painting, knowing in advance that no answer will ever be possible."
Jean Marie Haessle
"Jean-Marie Haessle's work, imbued with mystical ambiguity, is also dominated by simplicity. This is a paradox of his vocabulary. One thinks of the tradition of interpretation in sacred literature where the text can be interpreted literally, symbolically, allegorically or analogically. These strategies emphasize the semantic richness or polysemy of the mystical text. Haessle's work brings us into the presence of mystical bodies that are both words and spirits. His paintings are disarticulated quotations of ancient alphabets and typographic flourishes, full of copula and copulation where fragments of scattered bodies undulate strangely toward each other in a final movement of passionate intertwining."
"The great mastery of color that the artist demonstrates immediately arouses pleasure. In each of the paintings, in recent drawings and watercolors, color is used as the main instrument of mediation. The figures emerge quite clearly, but they always emanate from the sonorous and romantic overtones of color."
David Shapiro
