I like Sylvie Fortin, do not hear that I love as I would Claude Lorrain or Raoul Dufy, no, I love friendship.
I like his kindness, his simplicity, his affectionate smile, the charm of her laughing eyes … and of course his talent.
I have to get up on the ambiguity that would settle in the mind of a superficial observer: Sylvie’s style is similar to the still lifes of the eighteenth century. This is a deliberate choice, like that of a contemporary writer to write good French.
But now look at his painting with new eyes, you will discover that there is nothing in his paintings that be akin to those stilted cliches.
Vocabularies are similar, but the sentence is light sensitive; the subtle touch, evocative; gesture control, elegant; dense composition, complex; scholarly palette, smooth.
I’ll tell you what differentiates the artist “workers”, they dazzle for a moment by their technique, but after a few days their processes jump out at you. The subject that seemed appealing becomes dull and tired looking.
So when overlapping trades sensitivity and emotion, the table offers then a presence, dialogue, friendship.
Try Sylvie Fortin, you will see that this is not a picture that you have at home, but a little of his heart, and that’s a lot.
Georges Monin