Pierrick Allemand is not only a painter. He is a teller of tales as well. Each of his works tells a story, and you have only to look at one for it to carry you elsewhere. We are taken by the hand by these women with fleshy lips, far off eyes, with their open bodies and impenetrable souls. What are they hiding from us? What do they seek to teach us? Hide? Their lives. Teach us? Life itself. They express their desire for a good life in a world of discomfort. Optimism, most surely, transcended by the gush of colors and light that bathe the canvas, and the cruel reality of a world with hopeful borders, of a civilization that offers optimism as the ultimate luxury for man. Pierrick Allemand is a painter, a teller of tales, and why not, a troubadour. His paintings sing, to those who know how to listen. They murmur and rustle. Who would not hear that metro entering the station, threatening to run over a poor man's dog, or the screeching siren of those boats casting off towards distant nowheres, or the gurgling of a carafe pouring into a clouding glass of anisette. When all our senses are involved, it is that Art is here, and soon Happiness ensues. Patrice Dard