Following the major retrospective dedicated to GRATALOUP at the Chapelle de la Salpêtrière in Paris in 2002, and thanks to the support of Miguel Sieler, then President of Bayer France, a significant new exhibition was organized at the Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon in 2003.

Alongside this institutional exhibition, the gallery Le Soleil sur la Place presented a selection of the artist’s works from October 3 to October 31, 2003. The exhibition highlighted a particularly prolific period in GRATALOUP’s career, marked by a profound spiritual reflection inspired in part by a deeply personal mystical experience in Lourdes several years earlier.

Visitors discovered several major bodies of work from this period. The Elevations series expresses a quest for transcendence in which light becomes substance, presence, and revelation. Forms appear to free themselves from gravity and open onto a spiritual dimension, inviting viewers to look beyond the visible world.

The exhibition also featured works from the Leaves series, a poetic meditation on time, the fragility of existence, and impermanence. Through these simple yet universal motifs, GRATALOUP explored the cycles of life, memory, and the continuous transformation of all things.

A significant place was also given to his works inspired by the Desert, a recurring theme throughout this period of his artistic practice. Far from being a purely geographical subject, the desert emerges as an inner landscape—a space of silence, contemplation, and revelation. Vast expanses, luminous horizons, and mineral textures become vehicles for a reflection on essentials, creative solitude, and the encounter between humanity and the infinite.

Bringing together these different series, the exhibition revealed the coherence of an artistic vision seeking to make visible what lies beyond immediate perception. Through light, time, nature, and spirituality, GRATALOUP developed a deeply personal visual language in which each work becomes an invitation to contemplation and inner experience.

This presentation at Le Soleil sur la Place provided a valuable complement to the exhibition at the Chapelle de la Trinité, offering a more intimate perspective on the artist’s universe at a pivotal moment in his creative maturity.