Techniques of expression

TECHNIQUES OF EXPRESSION lists the multiple domains in which Jean Hirtzel expresses himself while carrying out his research. He does not establish a hierarchy. He passes from one to another of the same theme, or sometimes mixes them. As his expression is intimately tied to his experience, it is more this factor that determines the medium most adapted to the circumstances. His fundamentally personal artistic trajectory suggests that he lived his life as a total happening in which the works of art are only the traces that remain or as he said himself “the trace of the creator’s act”.

While travelling he captured artwork on paper, in notes, studies as well as photos. In the studio of Bains de l’Alliaz, his activities are seasonal. Sculpture, created outside, is done during the summer, and painting predominates the rest of the year. Certain activities are carried out with almost a ritual-like regularity : writing and reflection time in the morning, and research, in particular in the Cahiers de Visions, in the evening.

Like the shaman prepares himself for his healing activities with warmup exercises (singing, drums, dance), Jean Hirtzel performs physical endurance activities almost daily. Hours of racing (on foot, by ski or bike) constitutes a sort of physical exhaustion that provides him with stronger psychological acuteness, a sort of “clairvoyance” favourable to the act of creation.