François AVRIL KUNSTRUKTION II

Ten years after his first Kunstruktion exhibition, François Avril is continuing to explore the theme of urban transformation and utopian cityscapes. For this second exhibition of the same title, he has remained true to his artistic approach, producing some thirty drawings and a dozen or so paintings on canvas. Kunstruktion is a neologism combining the German word Kunst (meaning art) and the French/English word construction provides the context for an artistic project where surfaces, lines and volumes are organised in such a way as to create urban compositions that hover between drawing board and reality.

Factories and skyscrapers abound in Avril's works. High-rise buildings are elevated to the pantheon of modern aesthetics, and nature makes an occasional appearance, greening the facades or serving as a backdrop in a distant hint of sea. Tubular structures, rhythmical lines and simple forms dictated by function are aesthetic and visual givens in the work of this artist. Avril plays with the topography of the places he visits and the places he imagines. His is a graphic universe where buildings, scaffolding, signs and windows are the recurrent features. His cities, viewed from above, from the tops of towers, or from street level, play with space and perception.

"I am passionate about composition. Composition, for me, means volumes, masses and cubes. I could take some boxes and arrange them on the ground and I'd see a street corner or a building emerge. There are a thousand ways to compose an image. A line or a proportion is all it takes for the result to work, or not."
François Avril

Through the subtle play of light and colour, the urban landscape becomes a graphic reverie, its limits transcended. This chromatic harmony confers a special atmosphere on Avril's compositions, the artist favouring a light, luminous palette in which pastel shades create a warm, soft ambiance. Human beings are frequently absent, or simply hinted at as mere silhouettes, a conscious choice on the part of the artist, reinforcing the impression of silence and giving his paintings a distinctively meditative quality.

PRIVATE VIEW
Wednesday 11 June 2025
from 6.00 pm
in the presence of the artist

EXHIBITION
From Thursday 12 June
to Saturday 19 July 2025

PARIS | Matignon
36 avenue Matignon, 75008 Paris
Wednesday > Saturday 11.00 am - 7.00 pm