Paul Hardy develops a pictorial approach guided by intuition, primacy, repetition and poetic gestures. There is a tension between the desire to cross various fields of knowledge; to access rich conceptual and material references, and the desire for simplicity in order to achieve a luminous, diaphanous, almost immaterial essence. This contradiction in the artist’s will permeates all his work. It brings about a complexity which emerges through sustained attention. Meaning does not reside in a network of references demonstrating a historical erudition. The pictorial self-reference and quotations, in their reconfiguration, testify to a research in which the paintings become modular sites of explorations. Oppositions are put forth and reflect a multidimensional worldview where space is made for therapeutic aims. There is an integration of spiritual, authentic and pictorial gestures—a distancing from cynicism—enabling personal values which engage the body as well as the mind.

THIRD, is an impossible meeting of dualities. It is this other space that an artistic practice can create. THIRD is woven of mimetic connections that cannot be reduced to the sum of its constituent elements. It is a transfer from a more formalist, conceptual research towards a more open reflection in constant evolution. The play of surfaces and transparency create gaps in the unity of the paintings while producing a plurality of physicality. THIRD also speaks to the relationship between artworks. Referring to the concept of psychoanalysis and the space that can form between two people when they are in a relationship of agency, without being completely determined by the other. Thus, the pictorial proposals of Paul Hardy, in their diversity, unfold in a constellation where repetitions open a set of potentialities to be experienced.                        

Text:  Isabelle Guimond