artist/ Klein

France

It was through film photography that Frédéric Klein took his first artistic steps before turning to engraving. These two visual arts involve varied inputs which contribute to revealing a work. In photography, shooting involves development work with a technical aspect around the baths. This multiple approach which reveals the work, thanks to its technicality, its subtlety, its magic is not so far from the art of the engraver who works his plate with a dry point, the attack with acid, the ink before offering it this final passage under the weight of the press which finally reveals the finished work.
Painting then became obvious to the artist. For Frédéric Klein, it is a more flexible, freer work, but which also responds to the principle of successive creative stages. The preparation of the canvas is a ceremonial during which the artist uses the gestures and materials from the origins of the painting. These linen or hemp fabrics which date from the 1920s, or even the 18th century, are treated with great attention. He stretches them with strength and determination, delicately fixes them on a wooden frame before coating them with an artisanal preparation. This step is essential and allows creative work, in oil, to deploy in a territory marked by a strong plastic identity. The final work is already initiated by the impact of the preliminary stages.
The works painted by Frédéric Klein are not mirrors of his engraved works. If the vein is close, the facets are far apart. It is in fact a completely different plastic definition which marks the transcription of his work from engraving into painting. To the finesse and purity of the engraved lines, the artist contrasts the sobriety and darkness of the painted imprints.