Dominique CORBASSON Paris sur le motif

From 23 June to 27 August 2022, the Les Arts dessinés Gallery in Paris is showing a selection of drawings by Dominique Corbasson and her daughter Gloria Avril. Corbasson’s works are the story of Paris. Avril’s are inspired by North America’s roadhouses. Two different worlds. Two artists inviting us to accompany them on a journey.

Dominique Corbasson studied at the Duperré School of Applied Arts and at ENSAAMA and originally worked as a designer and colour stylist before turning her hand to illustration. She worked for the press and in advertising and publishing, collaborating with top-flight brands while developing a delicate and luminous style that was very much her own. While she retained a fondness for her Breton origins, it was the life of the city that inspired Corbasson and wherever she found herself she would be soaking up the atmosphere. In Corbasson’s work, cityscapes and landscapes come to life through her delicate, free-flowing pencil marks and brushstrokes. Her distinctive sketches of Parisians going about their daily business and the gaze she brings to bear on California, New York, London, Tokyo, and even Scotland, are vibrant examples of her working practice.

Dominique Corbasson died in 2018, and the works of hers on display here are primarily her drawings of Paris. Paris was where Corbasson was born and where she lived, whose streets, boulevards, squares and gardens she roamed, immortalising them in sketches that have the immediacy of photographs, of photo-reportage. Paris was where she loved to walk or cycle, step inside an unfamiliar shop, sip coffee on a terrace, watching people, drawing them… The life of the city was a recurrent theme of her work. Because she loved its dynamism, its vibrancy. But also because of what the day-to-day rhythms of city life say about us, our habits and behaviours. Like a detective looking for clues, Dominique Corbasson observed with care the customs and quirks of Paris residents, the better to capture them on paper. This new exhibition at the Les Arts dessinés Gallery, a space dedicated to contemporary drawing, is a further illustration of Corbasson’s working practices.

PRIVATE VIEW

Wednesday 22 June 2022 from 6.00 pm to 9.00 pm, in the presence of Gloria Avril