Frédéric BOUFFANDEAU

Frédéric Bouffandeau was born in 1966
He lives and works in Angers
He has been exhibiting at the Oniris gallery since 2016

Frédéric Bouffandeau's work is inscribed under the sign of a singular and imperfect form that he calls the "matrix". As much akin to a human cell as to a plant and floral figure, it is alive, supple, sensual and carries a certain form of poetry. Sometimes full, sometimes hollowed out, or opaque, Frédéric Bouffandeau constructs and deconstructs this form with the help of paint, drawings, neon lights, aluminium sculptures...

The issues of the work are to explore painting and space. The organic, the architecture are the elements that form the basis of my reflections. The mediums used are drawing, painting, volume, light and moving images. I look for the tensions that can arise from the reduction of means, trying to bring the mediums I use as close as possible to the space they occupy.

All his work is born around this form directly inspired by a flower. He starts from the module, from this floral, supple form, whose contours, once underlined, were to become the matrix of a whole production, which for about twenty years has been inspired by the botanical element.

Deploying the spring and joyful waves, the artist invites us to awaken the senses. Sometimes, the shapes are flush, evanescent, caressing, barely perceptible, and when they are not bathed in a luminous halo (as is the case with neon lights), they are even radiant.

Their vibrant character emerges from saturated, intensely contrasting colour planes. The line is clear, precise, the shapes closed in on themselves are opaque, full, or hollowed out, there is no illusion here, and one understands that this is an intuitive plastic search, a search for timelessness.

The artist's approach is particular, he passes from one medium to another, without interruption. The pieces produced fertilize the following ones, enriching the whole, while keeping their elementary, modular character. So much so that each one is both generic and singular. The works are deliberately reduced to a few elements (outline, plan, colour), thus displaying a research in the use of paint. The same is true of his sculptures, which he perceives as "folded paintings", a large part of which is left to chance and uncertainty by the randomness of the line.

His work should not be seen as a rethinking of the medium, but rather as "an idea of a new beginning" to go beyond painting. One can see in the clean, precise lines that it is an intuitive plastic search, a search for timelessness.