Presentation
In some families, talent circulates like an electric current. For François Avril and Dominique CORBASSON, drawing was a shared language, and it was the language their three daughters learnt from an early age. Drawing for fun, drawing as a means of communication and of escape, a way to dream. Creativity was just part of everyday life for the Avril family and each of the girls has gone on to follow an artistic path. All three draw, but GLORIA alone has chosen to make drawing her profession.
The P A Y S A G E S [ X 3 ] exhibition at the Huberty & Breyne?s Paris|??Matignon gallery showcases the individual visions that inspire this family of artists. GLORIA is showing a new series of works on paper begun during her residency at Rocabella, alongside drawings by François AVRIL and previously unseen compositions by Dominique CORBASSON, who passed away in 2018. Interior landscapes, seascapes, cityscapes and mysterious forests form a set of motifs that link their artistic practices.
A unifying feature of the exhibition is its inclusion of works created collaboratively. Collaborations between Dominique CORBASSON and François AVRIL appear here for the first time alongside their daughter?s work, and this inter-generational dialogue opens up a fascinating space for interaction and exchange through drawing.
GLORIA
The forest?s echo
As the daughter of two artists, Gloria grew up in a household where drawing was just part of the natural order of things. She was used to handling brushes and pencils from a very young age and would sometimes join in the drawing games and exquisite corpses organised by her parents and their artist friends.
GLORIA, who signs her works with her first name only, written in capitals, trained at the École Duperré in Paris. Over the years, she has developed an intensely personal vision. Relying on her considerable drawing skills and sensitive use of colour, she composes nocturnal landscapes and scenes inspired by the imagery of road movies and independent cinema. As we look at one of these works, we might be hearing the soundtrack to Twin Peaks or Thelma??&??Louise. Vast rolling landscapes, immense plains and forests, isolated cabins and motels, highways slicing through the landscape and vanishing into the distance ? GLORIA?s backdrops seem to stretch into infinity.
GLORIA?s drawings, executed in colour pencil, rely on a painstaking process of layering. While creating a narrative, these successive layers of colour also enable light to shine through. The contact between pencil and paper, the gradual construction of the image and the precision of her approach are all aspects of her practice that the artist cherishes. Her works evoke absence, a moment of suspended time, where something is about to happen but is not happening yet. And her figures ? female figures who seem barely there, silent-seeming figures ? are like fugitive presences in landscapes where an open-ended narrative unfolds.
This new series of some fifteen drawings continues the narrative approach the artist has been developing to date. In them, she explores the mystery of forests and the energy of the forest environment, at once enveloping and unsettling. The series, begun during her residencey at Rocabella, has a unique significance for her.
?The forest represents me. It symbolises an inner landscape, composed of layers, silences, areas of light and shadow. My aim is to construct an immersive atmosphere where references to the real world are transformed by the use of deliberately surreal colours. Female figures recur, as a central presence or an extension of myself, in relation to this environment. The white horse ? which is present in several of my drawings ? functions as a ghostly apparition. The forest becomes a place of transition, transformation and visual storytelling.?
Drawing together
Dominique CORBASSON and François AVRIL met at the Arts Appliqués de Paris École Duperré. A close bond soon developed between the two students, and they would go on to have a family together while supporting each other in their respective careers. Drawing underpinned their life together as each gave the other feedback and advice, sharing a language that they would pass on quite naturally to their three daughters, Victoire, Pénélope and Gloria.
The couple developed a collaborative approach to their art. We might, for example, recognise in Dominique CORBASSON?s work a perspective adopted by François AVRIL, or find in the latter?s paintings a colour harmony suggested by Dominique. The duo also created works together, notably for the ?West Coast? exhibition at the Huberty & Breyne gallery in Brussels, and in 2017 published Little Audrey?s Daydream, a book about the life of Audrey Hepburn.
This practice of drawing as a shared space was something GLORIA inherited from her parents. ?Of the three girls, Gloria was the one who drew the most,? recalls François AVRIL. ?When I came home in the evening, I was often delighted to find a drawing she had made during the day and which she had signed ?GLORIA PAPA?. I kept these drawings and cherish them. They are the record of a long conversation in drawing.?
Following in her parents? footsteps, GLORIA has developed her own unique language, at once mysterious and poetic. ?As a family, we have shared so much ? influences, perspectives, entire worlds. Despite our shared interests, each of us has managed to find his or her own writing style and identity,? says François Avril.
Dominique CORBASSON
Observing the world
An urban artist deeply attached to her Breton roots, Dominique CORBASSON immersed herself in the atmosphere of place. The city, and in particular Paris, was one of her favourite locations for observing the world around her. She would get on her bike and explore its streets and boulevards, its gardens and terraces, while closely observing the behaviour and habits of the city?s residents.
Her gaze was not confined to the urban environment, however. Dominique CORBASSON felt an affinity with the natural world, and with Brittany in particular, and both occupy an important place in her work. The Breton coastline, Californian shores, Scottish landscapes and the light of the Northern hemisphere all provided inspiration for works where the horizon, the sea and nature?s greenery are the primary focus. Whatever her subject, Dominique CORBASSON captures above all the atmosphere of a place. In her drawings as in her paintings, architectural elements, trees and human figures coexist in perfect harmony, while a bold palette, luminous expanses of colour and a relaxed drawing style give her works a striking originality.
François AVRIL
Composing space
A major figure in the world of contemporary drawing, François AVRIL has developed a unique graphic style over the decades ? one where the drawn line organises space with remarkable economy of means.
His compositions rely on a process of sythesis and re-composition in which vertical and horizontal lines, flat areas of colour, slender silhouettes and architectural perspectives structure the surface of the canvas or the paper.
The city occupies a significant place in his work. Paris, New York, Tokyo, Hong Kong and Brussels become landscapes re-composed, at once fictional and familiar. But his gaze is not limited to the urban environment: the artist also explores natural landscapes, such as cliffs, coastlines and seascapes, which he approaches with the same compositional rigour as in his cityscapes.
Whether he is focusing on an urban or a natural landscape, François AVRIL is less intent on mimicking reality than distilling the essence of what he sees, leaving the viewer total freedom of interpretation.