Richard MERIC

Title: 00/ "Le Fou" | "The Fool"
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Traversing the paths leading to the center of himself, the individual goes on towards the virgin and unexplored lands of knowledge. Christopher, robust and serene, carries the ‘child-world’ across the Jordan river, leaving behind him its past life."

Title: 1/ «Le Bateleur» | «The Magician»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Playing with the elements which are the instruments of his destiny, at the same time tragic and futile, concentrated and carefree, the man made of flesh and spirit seeks his truth beyond the known limits. The ‘Tarot Juggler’ runs through the meanders of the intertwined processes that symbolize the Tarot Arcana, in search of himself. Under the serious gaze of a child, a man appears from the night, anxious, accompanying the race of the spheres with a casual gesture.

Title: 2/ «La Papesse» | «The High Priestess»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Hidden in the veil that separates the dream from reality, Psyche holds all the secrets of the world inscribed in a silent book. In a set that is both symbolist and ordinary, reigns a arrested silence which seems to freeze all things ... for eternity."

Title: 3/ «L’Impératrice» | «The Empress»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Mistress of celestial things and the spiritual world, the Empress irrigates the world of the flow of her knowledge, fertilizes it by means of her invisible strength. A veiled young woman, seated between the clarity of the sky and the shadow of the night, seems to accompany plant growth with her mind. "

Title: 4/ «L’Empereur» | «The Emperor»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"From atoms to the planetary masses, the emperor reigns over the material world, imposes his faith in the active force and the domination of the elements, sure of his power. An oriental and massive king is comfortably installed in a universe composed of heavy and compact materials."

Title: 5 / «Le Pape» | «The Hierophant»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Mediator between heaven and earth, faith, whatever the form it takes, is for humans the only sun that never sets. Five popes greet each other at the edges of an episcopal palace whose ceiling is a beach open to the ocean."

Title: 6/ «L’Amoureux» | «The Lovers»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"The existence takes place on two distinct levels: the trivial (ephemeral) plane and the tragic (sustainable) plane. If the choice is constant, the hesitation is just as much. Single from one foot on the other, Richard still oscillates between romanticism and eroticism in a sunny terrace setting. On the table, surrounding the recumbent statue of Romeo and Juliet, the snake and the fruit of sin accompany the bread and the wine of the Eucharist. If it was still necessary to insist on the symbol of the opposite and harmonious duality, the center of the painting is occupied by the white lily and the red rose. Let us wish everyone to find their balance between tenderness and passion."

Title: 7/ «Le Chariot» | «The Chariot»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Having a little too much faith in his personal action, the individual tends to go beyond the limits, going forward, braving contradictions and obstacles. The Chariot warns us against the excesses of the desire for predominance, the destructive force of ambition. Setting in a storm where everything is only fighting and violence, a majestic androgynous leads to a contradictory crew, jostled by the fury elements."

Title: 8/ «La Justice» | «Justice»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Facing the threats of chaos, Justice does not know to flee: it embodies power and balance and acts only by force or by the maintenance of equity. Within a reversible architecture, sword and balance assert themselves in a world where the top and the bottom are one. Justice is the first of the four cardinal virtues appearing in the tarot."

Title: 9/ «L’Ermite» | «The Hermit»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"The hermetic philosopher, detached from the world and its passions, seeks in his own inner night the sources of an enlightenment that he must keep secret. Crowned by Saturn, embodying Chronos, a Hermit appears exploring space and time, in the solitude of a salt and cosmic set."

Title: 10/ «La Roue de la Fortune» | «Wheel of Fortune»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Destiny being made only of alternations, ascents and falls, pessimism or optimism in fact do not have to be a constant attitude. Acceptance of this simple truth is a corner stone in the construction of wisdom. A luminous and disturbing still-life is the foreground of a funfair in the night."

Title: 11/ «La Force» | «Strength»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"The spirit triumphing over the heavy matter raises the individual well above the vagaries of carnal life. Blessed are those who find the path of spiritual strength and moral purity. This arcana is the second cardinal virtue of the Tarot. Floating in the shelter of a temple hanging in the air, an androgynous character meditates peacefully in the company of a lion freed from his aggressiveness."

Title: 12/ «Le Pendu» | «The Hanged Man»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"According two versions, the Hanged Man is the man suspended by the foot, or the man with a suspended foot, confusion resulting from a translation of the Italian tarot. The first means the individual enslaved by his contradictions, torn apart in himself. The second would appear wisdom, third cardinal virtue of the Tarot. The mannequin suspended in the small theatre satisfies the two interpretations."

Title: 13/ «La Mort» | «Death»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Liberating one from sorrows and concerns, Death is an essential passage to the rebirth, the continuation of life and to evolution. That said, like the characters surrounding the painting, the attitudes in the face of death remain varied. The opposition of the hues as well as the distortion of the architecture creates in the painting a tension very appropriate to the subject."

Title: 14/ «La Tempérance» | «Temperance»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"As the name suggests, this Arcana deals with the right distribution of forces, the free movement of fluids, the fair relationship of opposites. Manifest evocation of reconciled Duality, the painting gives off an impression of peace and harmony, despite the violence of colours. Fourth cardinal virtue, Temperance encourages us not only to moderate our impulses, but also to seek an inner balance."

Title: 15/ «Le Diable» | «The Devil»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Master of carnal passions and material greed, the Devil du Tarot warns us against ourselves. Aspirations for domination, greed, possessiveness lead the individual towards the hell of unfulfilled drive desires. In a world of fire and ruins reigns Lucifer, carrier of light, surrounded by his disciples. Surmounted by a couple of slaves, Satan rejoices in the secret of an overturned architecture."

Title: 16/ «La Tour» | «The Tower»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"The excess of his ambitions leads the human being towards his fall. The Tarot House God is also the symbol of the eternal back and forth between up and down, between spirituality and materiality: the confusion of the relation between flesh and spirit. Similar to the inhabitants of the Tower of Babel, Richard Méric tries to create his own image, in this self -portrait without tail or head."

Title: 17/ «L’Étoile» | «The Star»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Image of the world in formation, of the work which the individual must achieve in himself, the Star shows the soul linking spirit and matter, celestial and terrestrial energies, the conscious and the unconscious. The joint implementation of opposites is the key to any creation, of any progression. In a composite landscape, a woman whose head is surmounted by an embryo irrigates simultaneously water and the ground."

Title: 18/ «La Lune» | «The Moon»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"It is in the depth and richness of the inner world that the individual is able to discover the instruments of his «rebirth». The moon lights up the path of imagination and magic. She guides creative intuition. An intangible blind man, guided by a child, seems to be drinking from the lunar clarity. Like the crustacean at the bottom of the painting, the initiate must make a backwards trip in himself to go back to the fundamental sources of his being. "

Title: 19/ «Le Soleil» | «The Sun»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"The Sun, light of knowledge and energy provider, opens the way for the enlightenment and the advent of objective consciousness. This light is that of the happiness of knowing oneself in accordance with Nature, and therefore with oneself. In addition opposed to the moon Arcana, we find the image of a woman drinking from the source of solar energy, while a hawk, image of Horus, watches over a deserted extent in dawn emerging."

Title: 20/ «Le Jugement» | «Judgement»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"More than the image of death and the rebirth, Judgement is the representation of the victorious appeal of the spirit which frees us from the pain of the physical body: the spiritual response to the misfortunes of the flesh. The detachment from the material world is the key. In a Wagnerian setting, at the call of a trumpet inhabited by flames, the return to the life of the characters is more or less painful: despite appearances, this image is joyful and source of comfort ..."

Title: 21/ «Le Monde» | «The World»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Reward and coronation of the «work on oneself», the World is the image of the reconciled duality, of harmony finally carried out between opposites and contradictions. The antagonisms of matter and mind, of the male and female part which are in each one of us, are balanced. Surmounted by a stained glass window where two profiles are hidden, a butterfly whose body is figured by a couple, an individual nor more masculine than feminine seems to receive from the top a light, that we wish to everyone to find in themselves."

Title: 22/ «Le Fou» | «The Mat»
Oil Painting on Canvas
Size: 60x90 cm
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"Traversing the paths leading to the center of himself, the individual goes on towards the virgin and unexplored lands of knowledge. Christopher, robust and serene, carries the ‘child-world’ across the Jordan river, leaving behind him its past life. This second version of the Mat Tarot, carried out sixteen years after the first one can be interpreted as the result of the initiatory journey through the paths of the Tarot: the individual and the animals have lost their massive and sculptural appearance, the whole is lighter, more ventilated as freed from the weight of materiality, which is the purpose of this trip."

Set of 23 oil paintings on canvas carried out between 1981 and 1997 in a 60x90cm format, respecting the general symbolism of the Arcanas but having also been subject to free extrapolations.