Seen by...

Seen by Benoit Decron, curator of the Soulages Museum

"Vuillefroy's works hold by their strong interiority, sensitivity and letting go: with his portraits, one has the feeling of entering a box, a dark room. They reveal themselves as skeins of lines emerging from the acidic, rough colour, one might say. They are like a crushed mass of darkness with, standing in the centre, a being scrutinising you. Vuillefroy's drawing does not point to the intention, but, with its own language, seeks the goal to be reached. Facing the viewer, as we are reminded by the figures frozen in their interior, the pastel concretions of Édouard Vuillard: deep in the domestic cave nestles the soul and its most effective expression, the eyes. Infringement is a good thing, and it is also part of Vuillefroy's work. Moreover, for those who know his work, the self-portrait merges with these portraits; like an onion, the soul is peeled away. What good is the mask? Any representation is weighed down with the gravity of what the painter leaves us to see: let us not make a drama of it. A portrait is above all an unpacking and does not have to be happy or sad. It is enough in itself".