In 1978, Galerie Marquet brought together GRATALOUP and Roland Topor in a two-person exhibition that juxtaposed two highly distinctive artistic worlds. While Topor explored an imagination shaped by irony, fantasy, and metamorphosis, GRATALOUP pursued a pictorial investigation centered on the repetition of natural forms, the structuring of space, and the autonomous power of color.

For this exhibition, GRATALOUP presented a group of works from his Eucalyptus series, developed through his research into what he called folding and filling (pliages-remplissages). For several years, the artist had been refining an original method based on observing and recording motifs found in nature, then transforming them through processes of repetition, multiplication, and spatial organization until they occupied the entire pictorial surface.

The eucalyptus leaf became the fundamental element of a complex visual system. Repeated endlessly, the motif gradually lost its descriptive function and evolved into a field of signs. The viewer oscillates between recognizing a vegetal form and perceiving an abstract structure in which shapes expand, overlap, and continually reorganize themselves.

The works exhibited reveal GRATALOUP’s growing interest in rhythm, pattern, and spatial construction. Through folding and filling processes, the painted surface is fragmented into a multitude of interconnected units governed by an internal logic reminiscent of mosaics, weaving, or cellular structures. Painting is no longer simply a representation of nature; it becomes an autonomous territory where forms and colors generate their own visual reality.

Through the Eucalyptus series, GRATALOUP moved decisively beyond traditional landscape painting while remaining deeply rooted in the observation of the natural world. The eucalyptus is no longer treated as a subject but as a generator of painting itself. It provides the matrix from which compositions emerge, combining memory of the visible world, structural rigor, and chromatic freedom.

Presented alongside the works of Roland Topor, this exhibition marked an important stage in the evolution of GRATALOUP’s practice. It revealed one of the earliest fully mature expressions of his serial language, founded on repetition, transformation, and the capacity of color to create an autonomous space of perception.