The Marianne Givordine at the Givors Town Hall:
The painting is located in the Givors Town Hall and was commissioned by the municipality for the people of Givors.
Format: 1.65-2.55 cm
Mixed technique
This table was created from various research on the history of Givors to also find pictorial representations of the emblematic places of Givors so that any Givorn resident can identify with it.
As is traditional, the left side represents Givors' past with the Porte Saint Gérald, which represents Old Givors. Below, we have the famous glassworks and its chimney, now listed as a historic monument. The right side of the painting represents the future with the famous stars of Givors by architect Jean Rénaudie, revegetated, colored, and dominated by the partially restructured Château Saint Gérald.
This painting also reflects the memories of a large part of my childhood that I spent on rue Auguste Delaune with my grandparents and in the Garon estate with my great aunt and great uncle. The latter never stopped
repeat to myself "Do as in Givors!"; I'll leave you
imagine the perspectives that this can open up in a child's mind!
It is therefore through the beautiful colors and light of this painting that I wanted to convey the sweetened atmosphere of my childhood, also punctuated by the memories told by my grandmother, Mrs. Perraud. I will only mention two which are also illustrated in this painting:
- The fact that my grandmother knitted her own swimsuit to learn to swim in the water park. Indeed, Givors is a water town, as can be seen in the bottom right corner of the painting, a nod to the famous Givors jousts. These waves also represent the various floods that Givors suffered and which also marked my childhood.
- The bombings during the Second World War where my grandmother's family took refuge under a tunnel, but also in the Vernes district which at that time was only fields, represented by the horse in Picasso's painting "Guernica" which also refers to the bombing of a Basque village.
-The collages that compose it represent the different breaks of this era but also the industrial past of Givors with its workers' struggles represented by the wild side of the horse. But from the painting Guernica, I only left the elements that I think are bearers of hope like the "sun" (top right); the flower and the torch carried by an arm of different skin colors to mark the richness of the civilizations that we have in Givors. The sun at the top right also represents the cockade of the Phrygian cap that the Givordine Marianne wears. Inside, a light bulb which is again a reference to the industrial past of Givors.
For me, the objective of an artist is to be a witness of his time and he has the chance to be able to create "new worlds" or even just a "renewal" and this is what this Marianne from Givors offers us, dressed in the map of Givors with her brush and the coat of arms of Givors as a palette.
It is possible to have copies in the form of t-shirts, reproductions, posters, postcards or accessories (bags, pouches, mugs) on the link:
https://arte-delph.com/collections/la-marianne-givordine
