A CLASSIC BASE

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TOFFART naturally followed the family tradition, learning the trade of carpenter. In parallel with this training, he cultivated a predisposition for drawing from an early age. This innate ability will develop as much in artistic as in technical expression. As a result, his art was forged by a double rigor: the practice of figurative art through anthropomorphic representation, and technical accuracy through an orientation towards interior architecture and its own language, which is the technical plan drawn on a drawing board. At the beginning of his career as a visual artist, this dual graphic culture resulted in figurative works described as hyperrealist by critics. TOFFART contests this affiliation. This first creative choice can be explained by the influence of his cultural upbringing, which was strongly marked by academicism. As a result, TOFFART was attracted from childhood by genre painting, more particularly by the classic portrait. From his first works, he rigorously applied the conventional techniques of painting, perfecting his art through book training, the observation of the masterpieces of the great masters, their techniques and direct experimentation. From a draughtsman, he turned into a painter and moved from paper to canvas stretched on stretchers at the end of the 90s. Very quickly, the canvas stretched over a frame became too narrow to express his creativity. He returned to the very sources of oil painting by reappropriating the techniques used by the Flemish primitives. This is how he adopted the technique of painting on wooden panels outside the standard dimensions, then with canvas mounted on panel, in order to adjust the composition of the subject. As for the painting, TOFFART paints by successive glazes from a sketch made in graphite. His spiritual teachers were Hans HOLBEIN, Philippe DE CHAMPAIGNE, ​ Hyacinthe RIGAUD, Maurice QUENTIN DE LA TOUR, Jacques-Louis DAVID ou Jean-Dominique INGRES.

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This first creative phase is essentially based on an art of commissions. In fact, TOFFART defined himself very early on as a free creator who preferred to choose his subjects according to his inspiration than to be subjected to the tyranny of a model imposed by a client. This premise offers him the opportunity to diversify his production, allowing him to address all themes derived from anthropomorphic representation, such as the history scene, the nude or the self-portrait. Through this figurative expression, TOFFART's art reveals above all his almost obsessive desire to geometrically structure the space of the canvas through rigorous construction. To do this, he bases his compositions on the golden ratio, on the use of dimension transfer by triangulation. This need to divide space by line, to structure his works, led him to free himself from the theme to keep only the geometric framework and the way of modulating it to become a work of his own. This evolution leads TOFFART towards abstract art at the end of the 10s.

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FROM HYPERREALISM TO GEOMETRY

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This artistic evolution was originally based on a distant fascination for the works painted by the masters of geometric abstraction in general, more particularly those adept at kinetic art, such as MONDRIAN, VASARELY or Fernand LEGER, but also visual artists such as Franck STELLA or Sol EWITT. all illustrate TOFFART's attraction to the rationalized geometrization of space. The artist's transition to abstraction took place following an anecdotal event. On a snowy morning, TOFFART slipped on one of the many plates installed at pedestrian crossings. These rectangular plates inlaid at the edge of the sidewalks, made up of a grid of half-spherical heads, attracted his attention more than usual. From this fortuitous attraction for a rather banal object of street furniture, TOFFART has created an elementary module, a basic fraction graphically summarized by a circle in a square.

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This conceptual creation is not only provoked by an event in everyday life. It is the culmination of an artistic questioning intended to introduce a hitherto unexploited universe. To do this, a creative act was needed that summarized and synthesized an original artistic reflection. Indeed, the creation of the module is based on an observation of the artist long ago acquired through observation: the unexploited universe of the infinitely small of nature. Despite its invisibility, it conceals an original world in its own right, made up of shapes and colors that are revealed by scientific imagery at the scale of the microscope. As a result, the module responds perfectly to express this invisible universe made of simple geometric shapes. The module is similar to a living cell, the circle symbolizing the nucleus and the square its outer membrane. Like a brick from which it is possible to create complex organisms, the module can be infinitely declined by varying the sizes, thickness of the line or its color. It should be noted that empty spaces animate the compositions. Symbolically, they are opposed to the matter represented by the module, a plastic translation of the formula of the Greek philosopher Democritus: "The universe is composed of atoms and voids". The colored nets that snake between the modules and the empty spaces are so many veins where fluids, the energy of organisms circulate.

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​But, for TOFFART, the module can also translate the infinitely large of nature. This dimension is inspired by geographical imagery, with his shots in zenithal view that reveal the variety of terrestrial landscapes: urban structures made up of buildings and streets, rural landscapes cut into agricultural lands. Composition is no longer the enlargement of a microcosm, but the reduction of a macrocosm. Vast spaces are symbolically reduced to express their plasticity. It is more particularly the urban space that focuses this change of scale in TOFFART's work. His main source of inspiration is North American cities, well known for their networks of streets drawn in perpendicular grids. The blocks of buildings, the buildings are all elements specific to a modern city like the constituent organs of a living organism. Of course, architectural forms vary, but their geometric translation, at the limit of the glyph, remains the same for the artist: a circle within a square, a graphic translation of a typical construction. Through its urban-inspired compositions, TOFFART thus translates variety into the unity of architecture, through the use of its module, according to the same variations as in organic compositions (sizes, colors, strokes), allowing infinite possibilities. Inter-spaces have become the streets where vehicles circulate, like a bodily fluid. The grey areas symbolise various unbuilt spaces: squares, car parks, agoras, industrial wastelands. They contribute to the dynamics of the compositions.

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​technically, TOFFART paints his abstract compositions in flat tints. He opted for acrylic paint, which is better suited to this type of creation. Indeed, the use of drawing instruments forced him to work flat like MONDRIAN. On the other hand, he has remained faithful to his favourite medium: the wooden panel mounted with a fine-grained linen canvas pre-glued and then coated by him. The sketch is always made in graphite. On the other hand, the format of the works is directly derived from the module. They are square or multiples of the square, which is both a constraint and a creative challenge, since the concept of TOFFART suggests linking the infinitely small to the infinitely large. The reference to nature in what it expresses as basic logically led to the adoption of a limited range of colors: the 3 primaries and the 3 secondaries to which are added black and white. This limited chromatic bias immediately suggested the creation of predominantly monochrome series, punctuated by the other colors in order to punctuate the whole. This is the case with the Funnies, Cities, Black Kissies, White Countries and Fantasies series. TOFFART's works are not intended to be framed. The artist considers his works as living organisms that must breathe with space.

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The multiple possibilities of the module created by TOFFART suggest vast variations. The artist's recent geometric compositions are still attached to a conventional pictorial representation. Painting is still the mode of expression to translate his concept. But the infinite possibilities it conceals make it possible to envisage much bolder developments that are already in the making. They will combine chromatic and volumetric representation, the material in order to get out of the strict framework of conventional linearity. As for the themes, TOFFART has multiple sources of inspiration allowing it to use its module as a basic element for compositions with more symbolic connotations, as suggested by "the French Flag".

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Charles TOFFART

Paris, 18 June 2017

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