Marcel Barbeau is firstly an abstract expressionist and an action painting artist (1946-1957 and 1971-1980), whose paintings and sculptures become the material continuation of instinctual movement, which he superposes until formal achievement is reached. He’s thus pioneer of new pictural approaches, such as all over image, the cropping of composition by means of cutting a larger work or the association of several gestural techniques: scraping, marks, spots, drippings... His kinetic works (1959-1966) as well suggest the expression of movement, until it becomes incantatory hallucination. While adopting a minimalist approach in his quest for purity (1960-1963 and 1968-1971), he rejects its theoretical and formal constraints, to which he never totally submits. Let it be in his paintings, drawings or sculptures, his most simple compositions or most stripped forms – from the abstract figures that inhabits them – suggest movement, time passing by, a future to come. In that regard, his art constantly stands on the fringe of the aesthetic movements to which he relates to, imposing to the latter his own questionings, his own singular approach.
