Old jobs, New Jobs (2019-2020)

« One, do not forget to watch the stars and not your foot. Second, never give up work. Working gives us a meaning and a goal ; Life is empty without a job ».  Stephen Hawking (1942-2018)

 

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This drawings & paintings serie is a homage to old but especially new jobs. Unlike Charles Baudelaire’s writing (who depicted only “three respectable human beings” in 1863: “the poet, the soldier and the priest”), there are plenty of jobs where a person can excel by his boldness, his creativity and his generosity. I deliberately choose in these human portraits women and men whose jobs release, relieve, protect, feed and transmit. In our hypertechnological society, it is reassuring to see that both human hand and brain still remain the most professional innovating tools. The heart, as usual, is the vital organ of the matter: without sharing, working is a vain agitation. Most important is social utility: work can today and unfortunately enslave, but we can choose a job as a random act of kindness for humanity. Work can also fortify through the opportunity to get in touch with oneself and to become.
Since the 70’s in western countries, jobmarket is becoming increasingly feminised. These creations are a sociological testimonial : women persistence is exemplary when they are either ironer, pediatric surgeon, hacker, nun or ecological activist. “The two outlines of the male domination are the women social control of their fertility and the division of work between genders”, wrote the French anthropologist Françoise Héritier. Education and female work possibilities reduce theoretically inequities between genders. But women are still today the most discriminated in their activities : 2/3 of 774 Millions adults illiterates still remain women and this proportion has not evolved since 20 years (Unesco, 2019). Untill very recently Art history and artworks (mainly male) did not seem (unfairly) to witness women jobs….A shame, because as the Indian proverb says : “A single woman work is better than a 100 men speech” !
« Poet : Respectable » ?………… The artist is two persons: the craftsman who dreams and the dreamer who crafts. The poet has a child imagination: he is not describing the world but he discovers it. And her/his creation breathes LIFE. She/He is necessarily an idealist who refuses reality as it is. The poet is a hope vector and “the servant of superior ideals “, as Kandinsky wrote in 1910* : doing this, the poet has a full and accomplished job. I believe in Beauty, Goodness and in Wonder virtues. “Creation is intelligence which has fun ! » (Albert Einstein).

*« Du spirituel dans l’Art et dans la peinture en particulier »