While studying goldsmithing at the School of Applied Arts in Paris from 1948 to 1951, Gérard Schlosser was introduced to sculpture. After attending a performance of En Attendant Godot, directed by Roger Blin, in 1953, he finally decided to devote himself to painting. The deep impression left by this theatrical discovery is directly echoed in his paintings by two components that will forever be his trademark:
the phrase that serves as the presentation of each work, and a very personal focus, the close-up. When in Beckett’s work, Vladimir eats a radish found in his pocket, Schlosser transcribes this detail in a 1963 painting entitled "I like radishes better". The titles of his works are often somewhat humoristic and personal references to the script of the "metaphysical" conversation of two homeless men on stage: "We'll never get there at midnight", « You told him about it", "I don't remember", "Yes, of course you know them", "He was supposed to answer me today"... The technical codes are sourced from a narrative frame which is more or less evoked by fragments, bits of conversations taken from everyday life, which are prosaic, ambivalent and smile-provoking. These pieces of sentences arouse the viewers with the desire to extend the painting, to tell themselves a personal story where each one is free to resurrect, outside the frame, their life quotes, their ephemeral passages of time. The political content of the artwork is allusive and illuminates the observation of people’s daily lives in a gentle way. Although the artist's approach is not meant to be seen as a militant weapon, paradoxically, his representations of leisure or idleness, of a familiar and intimate world, of desire and expectations give this painting a sociological power of time, which is frozen, like a freeze frame in a movie. In his artistic practice, Schlosser has set up a true protocol: when a subject appeals to him, he starts by capturing it in black and white. He uses his photographic prints as true preparatory drawings as he would with charcoal sketches. From his shots, and his research on light, he composes a clear narrative by cutting, by fragmenting, by only keeping the useful fragments for the shaping of his project. He never uses the photograph as it is, but mixes different shots and then juxtaposes visions taken with different depths and angles. These photomontages, set up and glued with plasters, create a new image that fixes the painter’s choices and will be projected by the episcope on the canvas for the final step using the brush. The artwork goes beyond appearances, and introduces us to the intimacy of artistic creation through the aiming of a true mise en abyme of painting as in his tribute series in 2017 for Fernand Léger. In the manner of fresco artists, the support is coated with remarkably fine sand before any acrylic paint, this matte material that does not provoke a mirror effect and catches on better to the sanded canvas. He specifies: "Each grain seems to add depth to its shape by the mounting of shadow and light. By leaving aside the sharp and artificial outline, Schlosser treats the volumes in a photographic manner. The outside of the field is left to the viewer’s imagination, and from the details each viewer actively takes part in the artwork through meditation and dreaming. Fantasies, excitement, the wait, boredom, silences, sadness, joy, rest, vacations, pleasure, nature are glorified in his disconuities, in his original framings. As a painter he often lingers on women who’s necklines are unveiled. He deprives us of their faces, as if by looking at his paintings, we would be putting ourselves on stage. The close-ups turn the viewers into potential voyeurs, who share relaxing, precious moments, minutes of intimacy in the lives of these fictional creatures, who have become mirrors of each other through Schlosser's art.