Abstract minimalist artist Pierre Soulages (1919) is also called the painter of black. He sees light as a matter to work with. Striating the black surface of his paintings enables him to make the light reflect, and allows the black to come out from darkness and into brightness. Black becomes a luminous colour.

Pierre Soulages says:

I like the authority of black. It’s an uncompromising colour. A violent colour, but one that encourages internalisation. Both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up a mental field all of its own.

Honoured in 2010 by having painting exhibited in the Louvre and a major retrospective of his work at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.