Jean Pierre Raynaud reste fidèle à ses études à l’Ecole d’horticulture de Versailles et ses premiers assemblages de 1959 font référence à « une nature urbaine » faite de signalisations routières sur des plaques de bois. A partir de 1963 il compose ce qu’il appelle des Psycho-Objets. Pots de fleurs, crocs de boucherie, jauges, extincteurs, panneaux de signalisation... proposent un rassemblement incongru d’ustensiles tirés de l’environnement quotidien pour constituer la matière première de son œuvre. Chez lui ces objets ont toujours une valeur de symboles, voire de rappels à l’ordre et composent une véritable poésie de l’urgence. Pour cela Raynaud met en avant le contraste de deux couleurs aux connotations affectives très fortes. Ainsi le blanc, avec son idée de pureté clinique, d’asepsie, de vide, est opposé au rouge qui symbolise l’alarme, le danger, l’agression. Tous deux dessinent comme des blasons modernes du corps social. Le recours à cette dualité confère à ses œuvres une terrifiante présence comme on pouvait la ressentir dans la stupéfiante installation présentée à la Galerie Laurent Strouk en 2020 en pleine pandémie. On y découvrait d’immenses panneaux « circulation interdite » troués d’impacts de balles de carabine. L’artiste s’exprime avec l’efficacité du code de la route, avec des moyens qui ne laissent percer ouvertement aucune émotion et qui exposent froidement une situation, même si celle-ci est dramatique. Il laisse au spectateur toute liberté de choix mais conditionne ses réactions sans toutefois faire appel à son sentimentalisme. L’intrusion mentale qu’il propose, réconciliant le ready-made de Duchamp et les couleurs primaires de Mondrian, donne à l’objet une nouvelle signification plastique sans le dénaturer mais en sursaturant sa charge d’agressivité. Par ce contraste rouge et blanc, ce dernier ayant pour fonction d’ « intensifier le rouge », l’artiste résume toutes les contraintes dressées devant l’être humain et présente une dialectique féconde entre l’hygiène et la cruauté, entre la vie et la mort. Comme le souligne le critique François Pluchart : « Raynaud a mis à jour un système plastique par lequel il a apporté au Nouveau réalisme la rigueur constructiviste dont il était dépourvu et au Pop Art une agressivité qu’il ne connaitra jamais autrement que par lui. » Par l’efficacité de son travail le plasticien provoque un questionnement sur la société accompagné très souvent d’un sentiment de vertige parfois même de nausée existentielle. La violence de l’œuvre marque l’esprit, choque la raison, meurtrit la pensée et érafle même l’émotivité. Raynaud compte parmi les artistes que le poète et critique d’art Alain Jouffroy appelle « Les Objecteurs » et il précise : « Devant les objets de Jean Pierre Raynaud, silencieux comme des dalles de tombes, on croirait assister à un rêve de prisonnier... Tous ses tableaux-objets sont des murs : propres, carrelés, lisses aseptisés. Un ordre inviolable y règne, et la paix qu’on y trouve reflète une absence impossible à identifier. » Ses « Objets » possèdent une évidence qui rivalisent avec l’environnement quotidien mais déroutent dans la mesure où les signes qu’ils articulent sont là surtout pour inquiéter. Sans que l’on puisse saisir ouvertement la finalité d’une telle opération on y pressent la volonté de l’artiste de jauger, calibrer, cataloguer, critiquer la société dans ce qu’elle a de plus coercitif.
Jean Pierre Raynaud remains faithful to his studies at the Horticulture School of Versailles and his first compositions in 1959 refer to "an urban nature" made of road signs on wooden panels. After 1963 he created what he called Psycho-Objects: flowerpots, butcher's hooks, gauges, fire extinguishers, road signs... suggesting an unlikely combination of utensils picked from his daily environment to compose the raw material of his artwork. These objects always carry symbols, reminders of conduct, and reveal a true poetry of the emergency.In this scope, Raynaud focuses on two contrasting colors with very strong emotional connotations. Thus white, with its suggestion of clinical purity, sterility and emptiness, is opposed to red, which symbolizes the alarm, danger and violence. Both depict these kinds of modern emblems of society. This choice of duality brings a terrifying presence to his pieces as it could be felt in his stunning installation presented at Laurent Strouk Gallery in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. There were huge "no traffic" signs with holes from rifle bullets.The artist expresses himself with the same efficiency as traffic regulations, in ways which keep emotions from being revealed and which coldly expose a situation, even if it is a drastic one. He gives the viewers all freedom to choose but influences their reactions without invoking their feelings.The mental intrusion that he delivers, bringing together Duchamp’s readymades and Mondrian’s primary colors, gives the object a new artistic purpose without distorting it but by over-saturating its aggressiveness. Through this contrast of red and white, of which the goal is to "intensify the red", the artist summarizes all the constraints raised in front of the human being and presents a fertile dialogue between hygiene and cruelty, between life and death.As the critic François Pluchart points out: "Raynaud has uncovered a visual system through which he brought to New Realism the constructivist rigor it lacked and to Pop Art an aggressiveness that it would never have known otherwise" Through his work, the artist efficiently raises questions about society, often combined with a feeling of vertigo, sometimes even existential nausea. The violence of the artwork touches the soul, shocks the reason, bruises the mind and even scratches the emotions.Raynaud is one of the artists that the poet and art critic Alain Jouffroy likes to call "The Objectivists" and he specifies: "When facing Jean Pierre Raynaud's objects, silent as tombstones, you feel like you are witnessing a prisoner's dream...His object-paintings are all like walls: clean, tiled, smooth, sterile. An unbreakable order reigns, and the peace that one finds in this work reflects an unidentifiable absence. His "Objects" carry evidence that rivals our daily environment but confuse the viewer as the signs they express are mainly there to disturb. Without being able to grasp the purpose of such an operation, one senses the artist's desire to measure, to calibrate, to categorize, to criticize the society in its most coercive aspect.
Jean Pierre Raynaud remains faithful to his studies at the Horticulture School of Versailles and his first compositions in 1959 refer to "an urban nature" made of road signs on wooden panels. After 1963 he created what he called Psycho-Objects: flowerpots, butcher's hooks, gauges, fire extinguishers, road signs... suggesting an unlikely combination of utensils picked from his daily environment to compose the raw material of his artwork. These objects always carry symbols, reminders of conduct, and reveal a true poetry of the emergency.In this scope, Raynaud focuses on two contrasting colors with very strong emotional connotations. Thus white, with its suggestion of clinical purity, sterility and emptiness, is opposed to red, which symbolizes the alarm, danger and violence. Both depict these kinds of modern emblems of society. This choice of duality brings a terrifying presence to his pieces as it could be felt in his stunning installation presented at Laurent Strouk Gallery in 2020 in the midst of the pandemic. There were huge "no traffic" signs with holes from rifle bullets.The artist expresses himself with the same efficiency as traffic regulations, in ways which keep emotions from being revealed and which coldly expose a situation, even if it is a drastic one. He gives the viewers all freedom to choose but influences their reactions without invoking their feelings.The mental intrusion that he delivers, bringing together Duchamp’s readymades and Mondrian’s primary colors, gives the object a new artistic purpose without distorting it but by over-saturating its aggressiveness. Through this contrast of red and white, of which the goal is to "intensify the red", the artist summarizes all the constraints raised in front of the human being and presents a fertile dialogue between hygiene and cruelty, between life and death.As the critic François Pluchart points out: "Raynaud has uncovered a visual system through which he brought to New Realism the constructivist rigor it lacked and to Pop Art an aggressiveness that it would never have known otherwise" Through his work, the artist efficiently raises questions about society, often combined with a feeling of vertigo, sometimes even existential nausea. The violence of the artwork touches the soul, shocks the reason, bruises the mind and even scratches the emotions.Raynaud is one of the artists that the poet and art critic Alain Jouffroy likes to call "The Objectivists" and he specifies: "When facing Jean Pierre Raynaud's objects, silent as tombstones, you feel like you are witnessing a prisoner's dream...His object-paintings are all like walls: clean, tiled, smooth, sterile. An unbreakable order reigns, and the peace that one finds in this work reflects an unidentifiable absence. His "Objects" carry evidence that rivals our daily environment but confuse the viewer as the signs they express are mainly there to disturb. Without being able to grasp the purpose of such an operation, one senses the artist's desire to measure, to calibrate, to categorize, to criticize the society in its most coercive aspect.