Daniel Pontet's performing art experience. Fusion of painting and music.
FUSION OF PAINTING AND MUSIC ON THE GROUND
Turning the Art World upside down with 'Impulse Art’
Daniel Pontet has been making waves in South Florida art circles with his new and unique form of artistic expression. Art performances accompanied by live music have opened a new door to his unlimited creativity. And he is the first local artist to put aside brushes and the use of his hands and still manage to create his own unique strokes of colors and lines – using his feet.
Impulses, created by musical notes and rhythms, propel Pontet to smear his canvas with a cacophony of colors that at first appear whimsical, but whose results are masterful. Working through the subconscious and simply reacting to the rhythms, his feet, which some would consider limiting, allow him to easily fusion his paint and the music. The rationality one expects when painting with brushes is substituted by the creativity and stimuli of his surroundings. In other words, Pontet does not illustrate what he hears and feels, but rather interacts with it. The results are impulses on canvas produced by the freedom and spontaneity of the music he hears.
As Harold Rosenberg, the American art critic who coined the phrase, ‘Action Painting,’ said during the mid 20th century, “The canvas is an arena in which to act.” His redefinition of art as a process rather than a product, as an act rather than an object, laid the foundation and was influential in a number of major art movements, from Happenings and Fluxus to Conceptual, Performance Art, Installation Art and Earth Art… And now, Pontet makes his contribution to the art world again with his singular feet painting through the ‘Impulse Art Experience.’
Pontet's words
“Since I began my live performances -20 years ago- where music leads to my art, I realized that I was limited by the use of hands and brushes in following the rhythms. I wanted to feel the music… and paint that inspiration. This obsessive impulse to add the smallest of details to my work – as a hyperrealist or figurative artist – made me lose the connection with the natural flow of the music, all the while grappling with every small element on the canvas.
That’s when -5 years ago- I came up with the crazy idea of using my feet – without the usual artist’s tools and all the boundaries they represented. The advantages my natural interaction with the music and the dynamic it helped create suddenly dawned on me. I felt my feet dancing on the surface and a special energy flowing with the musical notes and rhythms. Actually, when performing, I don’t feel it is me who is there. But the music that moves me and flows through me allowing to express myself creatively.”
IMPULSE ART is a live performance where the rhythm of music inspires artist Daniel Pontet to paint with his feet and hands. It is the type of event that grew out of the Action Painting circles, a movement born in the decade of the 1950's, that revolutionized the concept of art. In this new re-definition, art is seen as as an act rather than an object. It is the interaction between the artist and the paint, and the image on the canvas becomes just a witness of this encounter.