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Show I Artist feels Spanish influence ! ) "Ck" r h it " For centuries, the center of the art world was Paris. But French artist Henri Dechanet says the center of his artistic inspiration came from the Spanish art showplace, the Prado, and the images of the painter I Goya. I "He was so strong, he J made an indelible impression," im-pression," said Dechanet. Dechanet has always wanted want-ed to have an American J exhibit of Ks paintings,' but I J just never got around to it. I J Then he became friends with I ' Tex and Bonnie Deff ebach. f ! Thus he makes his U.S. ; debut at Park Place International, Inter-national, an art shop in the ; j midst of Park City's historic I Main Street. When it opened J this Sunday, Dechanet spoke ; 'i to the Record through inter- preter Tex Deffebach. ! His images tend to be : i strong and distorted, j irrepressible in their 1 aggression and thickness of line, and mordant in their i subject matter. (One ; features a dog, that was j hung because of some sup-I sup-I posed misdeed.) When you ask Dechanet what element in the paintings pain-tings is most important to him, he refers to Picasso's surrealistic classic, "Guernica." "Guer-nica." He said, "The ; shapes in the work created the impact there." (Incidentally, (Inciden-tally, he said Picasso didn't intend it as a political painting, pain-ting, even though it depicts an air-bombing atrocity by the fascists during the J Spanish Civil War.) ;i Of the works at Park City, the earliest is a 1978 painting I done in nice, warm colors. I Dechanet calls that a typical, and said he has I always preferred the darker '""-.. French artist Henri Dechanet 1 ! more violent studies. This is true no matter what medium he chooses, from acrylic to oil. The material he uses, he said, "depends on the day and my mood." Dechanet is a Frenchman influenced by the Spanish style. In fact (contrary to our article last week that said he was raised in Indochina) In-dochina) Dechanet was born in Morocco. He spoke Spanish as a young child. "It's bound to influence the way I paint.",..,. photo by JIM Snyder works, Dechanet said, he imagined he was discarding a few personal demons. But, he wondered if such impulses im-pulses are totally vented, will his art be as good in the future? "An artist faces this dilemma every day. He wants wan-ts to be at peace with the world. But he has to be aggressive and strong. It's not what you want to do, it's what you havo to do." The Dechanet exhibit runs through Dec. 31. k. - France and Spain have a tenuous relationship. As economic neighbors, they don't always get along. But under Franco, artists like Picasso found a refuge in France. Since Spain was liberalized, said Tex Deffebach, Def-febach, there has been more freedom for artists, intellectuals, intellec-tuals, and journalists. Dechanet believes that the French are not struck very hard by Spanish art. "A Frenchman will look at Goya's 'Fourth of May' (the painting of peasants before a firing squad) and he will say, 'That's strong,' but that's all." The good under-appreciated artists in Spain, he said, are young painters in their thirties. People like Chema Cobo, Perez Villialta, and Francisco Rojas are names to watch for, he said. The Spanish don't get major shows currently in the art capitols of New York or Paris. But they don't need any help artistically. "They have helped me," he said. With his dark, perverse |