Born in the sound and fury of Algeria’s war, Bernard Gast spends part of his childhood in La Rochelle (France)
He mainly studies humanities : law, art history, plastic arts… He holds a D.E.A. in Philosophy (Psychoanalysis and Aesthetic).
After 10 years in corporate communication, he lets loose with the security of salaried status to dedicate totally to art… But keeps a little time for clinical (Psychoanalysis) and philosophical research (Aesthetic, Art critic…).
All this theoretical and practical energy releases a unique way of creating, a singular style... A discovery Bernard Gast theorizes and sums up in this way : “I paint a Paintless Painting with 35mm films from cinema !”. His "pictures" indeed suggest all the ideas and the historical forms of painting in particular, and visual arts in general (Abstract, Kinetic Art, New Figuration movement, Cubism, Pop art, Surrealism, Minimalism, Graffiti, Social Realism, Photojournalism, Poetic Realism, cinema Nouvelle Vague, etc.).
About twenty artists in the world think and realize works, more or less related to cinema. So we can note John Baldassari, Jeff Wall,...
Certainly, Bernard Gast's work seems multi-form, but its unity essentially comes from his approach. With the only "raw material" of movie stills, his artistic language always refers to painting. Liberating himself from the raw material of painting, works of this contemporary visual artist constantly echoe with the spirit of painting. Sending back to painting, he names himself his approach Peinture-sans-Peinture (Paintless-Painting). This is probably what made Olivier Michelon* say : “the works of Bernard Gast are far more pictorial than Painting !”.
* Olivier Michelon, Curator in Art Centre Georges Pompidou for the exhibition Pictures movement (art, Cinema)
H. Georges Pompidou (Paris), France - Museum of Tuzla, Bosnie - Museum Saint-Vaast (Arras), France - National Library of, Canada - Library of Belfort, France - etc
Private collections (France, USA, Germany, Netherland, Japan, Canada, etc.)
CNRS (French National Centre for Scientific Research), France (Artpress Magazine national competition
: Convergences Art & Sciences)...
France 2 (Clip de l'Association Aides) – TF1 (Les restos du cœur) – France 3 (40° à l'ombre)...