Biography

Paint what we no longer see but what we have in memory.

Artistic biography

As a child, the painter who haunted my thoughts was Pierre Auguste Renoir. I loved his pastel colours, delicate blurs, tones for skin colours, shadows and lights, and above all, his way of giving life to his characters and landscapes.

Perhaps it was due to my one eye vision that I discovered a way of seeing this light that particularly touched and inspired me to paint from a young age.

A little later, I became interested in Claude Monet, again for the colours, admittedly less pastel, but his subjects, mainly nature, led me to observe, to take necessary time not to see the set of things, but to look at what surrounded me in detail. It was at this point when the learning process of artistic sight began giving the possibility to reproduce what I was seeing at and that others did not see. I was twelve years old at that time.

Other impressionists like Berthe Morisot, Édouard Manet, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas brought exoticism to my techniques as an art student.

Later, at the age of 18, my attraction oriented towards techniques of Gustave Caillebotte and especially his concern for detail always in search of the real as well as the works of Salvador Dalí for his perfection but also for the real in the unreal.

The search for detail began to emerge in me leading my imagination to work more and more. I was living at that time in a place, in Brittany, where tales and stories were part of my daily life; it was easy for me to let my imagination intermingle with what I saw in my landscapes.

In 1992, when I entered the National School of Fine Arts a new passion was born. It could have competed with painting but on the contrary, they complemented each other – the sculpture – that I practiced for two years without interruption.

After a visit of Auguste Rodin Museum, my interest turned on Camille Claudel. The finesse in her work, I could feel the passion, the heartbreak and the brilliance, the life in her plaster and marble works. For me, Claudel’s art is grandiose and it was giving me enough inspiration to feed myself day and night.

I drew her works to understand not only the light and the volumes but also her feelings and regard.

Not being able to perceive the three dimensions, sculpture helped me a lot in my work in two dimensions.

The National School of Fine Arts taught me an academic art, but I think that deep down I was ready to work on it.

In 2002, I was lucky to meet an engraving teacher, Myoug Nam Kim, who knew how to read my innermost thoughts. She taught me this art without imposing her own views but respecting my way that she knew before myself and evoked in a poetic, touching way. I learned to be open-minded, to try things out, to learn chemistry (acids, etching), engraving on different support (linoleum, Plexiglas, steel and copper) and also to master the press.

The engraving art that I practised for four years, for me, was a universe linked to magic.

Same year, I met Thomas Victor Frey, a drawing teacher, who taught me human anatomy and how to capture the instantaneity, drawing people in the train, the metro, children in the park, to capture the movement. Thomas Victor Frey taught me patience, observation, the ability to study and dissect an object, a plant, a person at a glance and then reconstructing it in a drawing.

I started to exhibit my work at the age of fourteen upon the advice of Roselyne Koba, a local painter in Brittan, who taught me impressionism through still life paintings. She gave me the basis to express myself through my work.

During my teenage years, my paintings were exposed in various places in Brittany ‒ my 14th century touristic village of Rochefort-en-Terre, Lorient, Vannes and St Malo.

After my studies at the National School of Fine Arts, I exposed my paintings in Yvelines, Bazemont, Maule, Montainville and Paris. Later also in Portugal, Switzerland, Italy (Rome, Palermo) and United States (New York).

Since 2011, listed in prestigious Drouot dictionary of artists.

Today, I continue to work on my paintings essentially with use of natural light.

I have developed a resolutely modern approach to classical and imaginary subjects, bringing a naive and poetic touch to contemporary subjects while applying conventional and advanced painting processes in use of oil or watercolour.

Laorens

Education

1989-1994

School of Fine Arts of Versailles
(Classic course with sculpture and engraving option)

 2003-2005

School of Fine Arts of Versailles
(Engraving specialty)

EXPOSITIONS

2022
Personal exhibition / Chateau de Musinens – Bellegarde sur Valserine, France

2022
Collective exhibition / Cheongro Art association – Incheon City, Corée du Sud

2022
Exhibition Life and Peace / Téhéran – Téhéran, Iran

2022
Collective exhibition World wide art show / Londres – Londres, Royaume-Uni

2021
Luxembourg Art Prize 2021 / LUXEMBOURG – Luxembourg, Luxembourg

2014
Palerme, Italy
Biennale Internationale d’Art

2013
Rome, Italy
International Exhibition

2012
Morges, Switzerland
Dry pastels, Oils, Watercolors
Personal exhibition

2012
New-York, United States
Oils
International Exhibition Times Square
Laureate of the Art Takes Times Squares competition.

2012
Rome, Italy
Oils
International Exhibition

2012
Allinges, France
Dry pastels, Oils, Watercolors
Personal exhibition

2012
Colmar, France
Oils, Watercolors
Personal exhibition

2005
Versailles, France
Exposition personnelle de Gravures

1996
Versailles, France
Oils exhibition

1994
Saint-Malo, France
Oils exhibition

1993
1st prize from the Mantes-La-Ville arts office, France

1992
Bazemont, France
Oils exhibition

1991
Montainville, France
Oils exhibition

1990
Maules, France
Oils exhibition

1990
Bazemont, France
Oils exhibition

1990
Versailles, France
Sculpture exhibition

1989
Brest, France
Oils exhibition

1988
Bazemont, France
Exposition huiles

1985
Lorient, France
Oils exhibition

1983
Malansac, France
Oils exhibition

1983
1st prize in the Brittany Painting Competition, France

1982
Rochefort en Terre, France
Oils exhibition

Address

Grande rue, 44
1170 Aubonne, SWITZERLAND

Phone

(+41) 078 851 96 00
(+33) 06 87 34 18 43

Téléphone

(+41) 078 851 96 00
(+33) 06 87 34 18 43

Email

laorens.rupil@gmail.com