Plastic artist

Adelin Donnay does not paint to decorate, nor to seduce. He paints to say. 

Born in Bressoux, his sensitivity is direct, straightforward and always accurate. His work seeks neither effect nor elegance: it digs, it scratches, it questions. 

With the exhibition Paysages pas sages, AdelinDonnay is opening a new chapter without denying what has gone before. The title is a play on words, but it says it all: these landscapes do not stand still. They resist any simple reading, any idea of peaceful nature. Tortured, fragmented and unstable, they are an extension of the muted violence of the "black heads" that have long inhabited his paintings. But here, the tension shifts. It extends to the space, the place, the outside - as if what was gnawing at the human being was now spreading to the world. 

Adelin Donnay works with patience and exacting standards. Each canvas is a thoughtful, tense, almost stubborn gesture - a local gesture, yes, but one that looks beyond our borders. He paints as one asks a question: not to obtain an immediate answer, but to open up.

Valérie Quanten