FRANCOIS BEAUDRY is a canadian figurative artist

established in Montreal, Quebec. Mr. Beaudry left his engineering profession to play with different materials such as beeswax, damar gum, chalk, rabbit skin glue, carborundum, to use his favourite techniques: encaustic, tempera and the mixed media pastel and watercolour.

During the realization of his portraits, landscapes and still lifes, guided by circumstances and chances, he plunged into the thought of Picasso as expressed in the writings of his merchant and friend Kahnweiler (the relationship Picasso-Kahnweiler lasted more than sixty-five years) and discovered an affinity he shared with these two, who reigned over the art world of the twentieth century, in their position resolutely against abstraction. Afterwards, following the same guides, he came across the book ABSTRACTION and EINFÜHLUNG written by a contemporary of Kahnweiler: Wilhelm Worringer. With the latter, the Egyptian pyramid, the pediment of a Greek temple and the Gothic cathedral are only different results of transformations coming from a single source: abstraction. With Kahnweiler, in an artistic movement, abstraction is a useless detour, with Worringer, abstraction can lead to an important art style. The antinomy cannot be more direct. In short, the painter who began his career under the influence of a lyrical impulse discovered an aesthetic conflict. This conflict, which has never been resolved, was to capture his attention (a summary of this conflict can be found by clicking here) for many years. Possessed, he went through these authors and discovered a few others, including Alois Riegl, whom he particularly likes. What began with a research on the merits of abstraction was to be transformed into a research on the process of metamorphosis in art from antiquity to today. Why? Because he is convinced that art is something that can be understood, even if for many, art is simply a matter of taste or worse : the demonstration of a refined mind. And, above all, understanding is the evolutionary vehicle par excellence available to all, even a painter, to reach, recognize and work in a fertile soil.