Stopover
In Pierre Pirson’s artistic career, the year 2003 was a really productive one in matter of events and pictorial creations.
He left all his ties in Belgium to set out on an artistic journey.
From Spain to Australia, including New-Zealand, the United States of America, to end up in the Marquesas Islands where he stayed for six months.
I think that mankind is nomadic, that it has been created to go for a walk, to go and have a look on the other side of the hill.
—Jacques Brel
A trip, that’s also being able to see other people as another part of ourselves and the beauty of the world as our cradle, the nature as our Mother, because the trip is perhaps a personal search for ourselves towards another self.
“I felt I did a trip and now I realize that the trip made me ! Here, poetry frees itself spontaneously. You’ve just got to give up, to let yourself dive in dreams to suggest it…”
In addition to the heavenly aspect of these islands mythical and favourable for creation, various highlights were significant during Pierre’s stay in the Marquesas Islands.
Paul Gauguin
A hundred year after his death, Paul Gauguin’s dream is still reality. 
He wanted to welcome his friend painters in the three bungalows-studios that he has built around his own bungalow. The town of Atuona has perpetuated the tradition. Pierre lived in one of these three bungalows.
He worked in Gauguin’s “Maison du Jouir”, and was the first artist who can, one hundred years after the death of the master, evolve in the whole renovated area, renovated thanks to the pictures and plans of that time. Pierre was also the first foreign artist who was allowed to exhibit his artworks in the Gauguin area.
Jacques Brel Area
Another memorable fact was Pierre’s participation in the restoration of Jacques Brel’s plane in collaboration with Marcel Dassault factory technicians to commemorate the 25 th anniversary of the artist’s death. Living not far from Antuona, Jacques bought a twin-engined plane and called it Jojo. He almost entirely devoted his energy to the population of the neighbouring islands. Pierre has to recreate the original colours of Jojo and the lettering of the fuselage.
Taking part in the inauguration of the Jacques Brel area, Pierre offered a big size painting which is a portrait of the one that Polynesians will never forget.
