ALAIN CHEVRETTE

Born in Lyon in 1947, Alain Chevrette has been exhibiting in Lyon and the Rhône-Alpes region since the age of thirty, as well as in Paris, Nice, Strasbourg and Metz. He is one of Lyon’s leading contemporary painters. He is regularly represented at art fairs, contemporary art events and museums: Paul Dini in Villefranche sur Saône, Mâcon and Nice. His early work was influenced by the Lyonnais style of Bonnard, but with a sense of drama expressed in strong chiaroscuro.

In his big white coat, Alain Chevrette paints under the roofs. In the ‘intimacy’ of this studio, which he needs to ‘collect himself in silence’, he isolates himself and savours the raw white light that only a glass roof can let in. This light, particularly that of late afternoons, seduced and inspired him, especially that of Lyon, so special and the true muse of the city’s painters: ‘as a Lyonnais, we remember the light’. The banks of the Rhône and the dome of the Hôtel-Dieu seen from the Pont de l’Université, the quays of La Mulatière, the banks of the Saône – this osmosis between water, architecture and light is found in many of his paintings. Soft tones, both cold and warm, express the atmosphere and the light he absorbed during his walks, as well as a real sensitivity to the cityscape. (Marie Gouttard)