It is at the end of his various trips to Belle-Île-en-Mer that GRATALOUP will begin a series of works on the island theme.

The symbolic expression is very present in his work at that time, through the use of gold and silver leaves. Biblically-inspired texts, sometimes written directly on metal sheets, are deliberately indecipherable.

These ancient canvases are now almost all in private collections, a number of which are still present in his old house in Seine-et-Marne.

"The islands are beautiful. I went on the pattern at the same places as Claude Monet. The islands sparkled under the sun. I was about to draw when
there was a swarm of laying gulls trying to attack me. And it was with my cardboard on my head that I had to flee quickly. But the islands are always beautiful…".