MY LANGUAGE IS COLOUR                        

 
Vita

Robert Mercier was born in 1945 in the South-West of France (Grand-Lemps).  During 1962/63, whilst studying with the French expressionist painter Pierre Hemery, he took part in a performance work based on Picasso’s “Guernica” with music by Olivier Messiaen.

In 1964, after collaborating with the Belgian artist Engel-Pak in creating glass and resin stained-glass windows for a church in Cabries, Bouches-du-Rhone, Robert Mercier became aware of the primacy of colour. He subsequently turned to abstract expressionism.

In 1970 he moved to Germany, where his numerous assignments over the years included graphics for wine and spirits advertising. From 1980 to ’82 he perfected a personal painting technique for dry pastels on velour paper.

From 1996 Mercier’s works were frequently exhibited.  He was also involved in a tribute to Charles Baudelaire wherein his acrylic canvases were staged in a lightshow whilst a musician improvised on piano and an actor read extracts from “Les Fleurs du Mal”.

In addition to these pursuits, he created the design for a limited series of Rosenthal porcelain for Danka Office Products.

Over the last years, he worked on an interpretation of a series of poems entitled “The Twenty-Eighth Engram of the Cosmic Wheel” by Oswald H. Edelhäuser, which he also translated into French.

After spending thirty-five years in Germany, Robert Mercier returned to France in July, 2005 and settled in the Dordogne where he died in September 2009.

Recent Exhibitons