THE ARTWORK OF THE MONTH: APRIL – “RADIO FLYER”

Écrit par Alain Rouschmeyer

RADIO FLYER

Acrylic on canvas
2021
100 x 70 cm

There are silences that come before sound — moments held in suspension, just before a single note shifts the air. “Radio Flyer” captures that precise instant: the before. Before the concert, before the voices, before the piano awakens.

On stage, a majestic Steinway & Sons piano stands in quiet command. Beside it, two empty stools, a suspended microphone, and soft lighting that carves out shapes from the surrounding shadows. But the true focal point lies elsewhere: a small, bright red Radio Flyer wagon — the kind once pulled through childhood streets in America — now repurposed.

Instead of toys or sand, it carries boxes of jazz scores, carefully labeled and neatly arranged. The wagon seems drawn from memory — a playful bridge between the world of childhood and the solemnity of performance. You can almost hear the soft creak of its wheels crossing the wooden floorboards.

As in many of my paintings, objects speak. They carry traces of gesture, of anticipation, of quiet rituals. Here, the concert has yet to begin, but everything is in place: the instruments, the seats, the papers… and that red wagon, offering a whimsical counterpoint to the seriousness of a jazz stage.

This painting asks a simple yet universal question: what do we carry with us through life, onto which stage do we arrive, and with what tools? Radio Flyer answers not in words, but in image — and in stillness.

Alain Rouschmeyer

Alain Rouschmeyer est surtout connu pour ses peintures acryliques sur toile moyen format et ses dessins contemporains à l’encre. Observateur du quotidien, il analyse la balade humaine à travers les postures et les espaces traversés, comme pour sonder le banal et en capturer le parfum. Son itinéraire artistique l’invite à travailler l’architecture dans laquelle il aime porter la réflexion sur les espaces de vie et les transversalités qui en définissent les usages. Comme un poète analyste, le travail d’Alain Rouschmeyer navigue entre réalité et intimité laissant apparaitre l’attachement et le détachement au gré d’une volonté consciente. Il explore la dimension cachée d’un quotidien qui ne cesse de nous interpeller comme une musique de jazz ou un blues chaleureux. Le romantisme dont il assume intégralement la traduction contemporaine et intemporelle habite le support comme un espace impliqué.

https://www.alainrouschmeyer.art