The History of Pre-Diction

Phil Demise Smith and Gérard Sendrey have been nurturing their personal and professional relationship for 15 years. They share space on both sides of the artistic fence as organizers, representatives and creators of art, simultaneously. Gérard founded and was director of the Musée Création Franche in Bégles, France while becoming one of Europe’s most prolific and sought after “outsider” artists. His recent retrospective in September 2010 exposed his many and varied styles and accompanying this exhibition, a beautiful catalogue was produced (available from Musée Création Franche). Phil is a well-published poet, songwriter - performing musician, painter and artist representative (one of Gérard’s representatives in the U.S.). This project was a labor of love. When Phil received this series of paintings from Gérard, he was immediately inspired to react to the works through poetry. The result is this collaboration: The History of Pre-Diction. The book itself contains reproductions of 23 small paintings (8"x12",1998)) by Gérard Sendrey and 23 concretely abstracted poems by Phil Demise Smith, each poem an associative response to Sendrey´s surreal images. Both the paintings and the poems create the atmosphere of a futuristic fairy tale. "Like a silent film, the language silently refers to the visual before a spoken language was heard (Pre-Diction)."