Daniel Lergon MULTIMONO

Galerie Christian Lethert is pleased to present a new body of work by artist Daniel Lergon (born 1978) at its premises. After having worked with metallic pigments, Lergon returns to works painted with color pigments with his exhibition MULTIMONO.

The title combines the latin word multi and the greek word mono. Although this sounds like a contradiction, Lergon manages to create his new paintings within this opposition. He generates his paintings out of one pigment but he perfectly understands how to use the whole shades of the phtalocyanine green pigment so that his complex compositions on the canvases vary from shimmering light green all the way through to a dark velvety, almost black tone.
Even though the reduction to a single color could be considered as restriction, looking at Lergon’s paintings this self-imposd limitation opens up a concentrated and focused way of painting. Using a smooth and monochrome picture plane, he emphasizes artistc gestures such as the brush-stroke style, the addition and removal of color with a scraper, the modulation of color density. These result in abstract formations and iridescent surfaces that appear to be three-dimensional.
Associations with paintings having been painted en verdaille come to ones mind. Like the better known Grisailles – a term for a painting created entirely with shades of grey – the so-called Verdaille describes paintings in green and has its roots in the 12th century, as a painting tradition used in Cistercian monasteries. While in former times rich coloring was prohibited, Lergon uses this limitation to show the wide color spectrum of the phtalocyanin green pigment and, therefore, draws attention to the surprising complexitiy within the reduction.