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Marc Bourlier
Biography
Marc Bourlier
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Sculptor
Written by Gilbert Lascault
Through a Secret Passage
Bourlier’s figures stand strong, erect, and emergent. They seek to be individual, characters with form and life, yet remain simple, pluck-skinned, almost basic. The figures are assertive, with clear and subtle-strong presence, definite. They have chosen the essential in form.
In them we see a vital logic, necessary in their self-expression.
Some years ago (for example in the ‘Ange 35’, 1996), Bourlier created the limbs, the sex of his pieces. Since then, these figures no longer carry legs or arms. Gender is not given…They keep anecdote, abstraction and psychological analysis at bay, indifferent to explanation, comment or story. They express presence through their relentless, indefinable energy, unbroken and unassailable vigor.
Bourlier’s figures are distant from singularity, the special or exceptional. Theirs is the modest and humble, all that is discreet and reserved…
There is nothing of hierarchy here – no gravity or pomp, no majestic aura. They are free from rites or ceremony. Instead they are without bearings, astonished, even crushed. Perhaps life has mistreated or worried them, caused distress. They question themselves, question all. What are they seeking?
These human figures are perhaps close to those in the poetry of Henri Michaux: “Hunted from property and place, they lose memory of it”. They have no place. They persevere nonetheless “without these aspects” (according to Robert Musil). Yet they cannot always be seen as ‘rootless’, without home. At times, as in 1999, they hang from branches ‘Like the Birds’ or ‘Musical Notes’…
They could perhaps be the sculpted portraits of ancestors, of figures on funeral or boundary stones, witnesses. Without limbs they do not move, immobile idols. The figures confront, brave the regard of others who look. But what do they see?
Bourlier has been fascinated by driftwood since his time on Normandy beaches in 1995. Fragments of planks, bleached, weathered, and shaped by wind and waves, created and chiseled by nature. Where land meets sea, he finds his material, in natural form and tone, refusing false color. In his atelier, he gathers and stores his driftwood. It dries, light, enigmatic…
The driftwood is not selected by the artist, rather, it chooses its time. It co-opts him, urges him to create these figures, to sculpt the allusive, unexpected silhouette. To begin, Bourlier fashions the head with its nose and two ears for the most part (though sometimes only one). These heads have three piercings, bored eyes and mouth. Heads without hair (in past times, perhaps the horse-hair of a brush). At times they are square, sometimes round or trapezium in form, the chin perhaps a triangle. Heads are often stretched but not necessarily sad in expression. Each head finds the body which belongs, which fits.
When the artist sculpts, he meditates, deliberates, dreams, invents. He seeks restraint – to keep to the pure minimum his presence, his act. But he does not insist. Discreet, wary, tempered, yet without calculation or pose. This act becomes decisive, intense and extreme.
Bourlier’s figures often hold close, touching tight, but at times stand alone. They draw together and become couples, families or clans. They may be bands or tribes, cliques or crowds. They settle in oval or rectangle spaces, at times in frames, at times free…
Some carry wide belts of linen thread, cord or straps, even discreet insignia, braid or ornament. The belt holds, fixes and knots, securing the shape of these figures of driftwood.
These figures live and murmer among themselves, one: ‘I love the fragrance of ylang ylang’, another: ‘Returned in September’. Others get ready: ‘Just before the Trip’. Some are going through ‘A Rainy Day’, one ‘Was so Happy’ or sometimes ‘A Cloud Passes’. Other figures discover their ‘Secret Passage’.
Major Exhibitions and Museum Acquisitions
Muséums Acquisitions :
Musée d’Arte Moderne de Paris, France
Musée d’Arte Moderne de Bahia, Brésil
Musée d’Arte Moderne, La Fabuloserie, France
Musée d’Arte Moderne, Mézières en Brenne, France.
Solo Exhibitions:
1997 – 2007 Exhibition, Gallery Beatrice SOULIE, Paris, France.
2006 Exhibition, Gallery HEER, Oslo, Norway.
2002 Exhibition, Maison 1932, F. CASANOVA, Moèlan sur Mer, France.
Exhibition, Maison du Guet, Gerberoy, France.
1998 Exhibition, Gallery MEBAC 98, Mézières en Brenne, France.
Exhibition, ministère de l’Environnement, Metz, France.
1996 Exhibition, Gallery Antiquités Modernes, Metz, France.
Exhibition, Gallery Art Defis, Louvre, Paris, France.
1994 Exhibition, Hôpital de Poissy, France.
Exhibition, Espace Brother, Paris, France.
Exhibition, Gallery Anpire, Paris, France.
Gallery Beauvallon, Marseille, France.
Exhibition, Musée de la Poste, Paris, France.
1992 Exhibition, Gallery Start, Bordeaux, France.
Exhibition, SACEM, Neully sur Seine, France.
1991 Exhibition, Gallery R. FORNI, Bruxelles, Belgium.
Exhibition, Espace Belleville, Paris, France.
1990 Exhibition, LINEART, Gallery R. FORNI, Gand, Belgium.
Exhibition, Comptoir de l’Evénement du jeudi, Paris, France.
Exhibition, hôtel PLAZZA, Paris, France.
1989 Exhibition, Gallery Athéanaeum, Paris, France.
Exhibition, Art DEFIS, Lyon, France.
1988 Exhibition, Musée Art Moderne, Salvador de Bahia, Brésil.
1987 Exhibition, Gallery Xplus, Brussels, Belgium.
Exhibition, Musée de Rochefort sur Mer, France.
1985 One Man Show, Gallery Iris CLERT, FIAC, Paris, France.
Exhibition, Opéra de Paris, CARE, Paris, France.
Exhibition, Gallery Pinxit, Georges V, Paris, France.
1984 Exhibition, FRAC, Paris, France.
1981 One Man Show, Gallery Iris Clert, FIAC, Paris, France.
1980 Exhibition, Gallery Iris CLERT, Neully sur Seine, France.
1979 Exhibition, Gallery Oriel Théâtre Clwyd, Pays de Galles.
Group Shows :
2004 Salon, Marly le Roi, France
Hôpital NECKER, Paris, France
Centre Culturel l’Hermine, Sarzeau, France
2004 Centre Culturel, Aix en Provence, France.
2003 Kaos, Gallery Patrick Morgan, Paris, France.
Centre Culturel, Saint Sever du Moustier, France.
Centre Culturel, ARAGON, Oyonnax, France.
1999 Centre Culturel Quartz, Brest, France.
Musée, Ingres, Montauban, France.
Musée des Beaux Arts, Pau, France.
1985 Centre Culturel, Mairie de Marseille, Marseille, France.
Salon, Mac 2000, Grand Palais, Paris, France.
Centre Culturel Acropolis, Nice, France.
1984 Salon Figuration Critique, Paris, France.
1978 Salon d’Automne, Paris, France.
1977 Prix d’Europe de peinture, Ostende, Belgium.
1976 Salon Novembre à Vitry, Vitry, France.
1975 Biennale de Menton, Menton, France.
1973 Salon des Arts, Gergy Ponoise, France.
1970 Centre Culturel Allemand, Tunis, Tunisie.
Bibliography :
Les Figurations, Xuriguéra, Editions Mayer.
Le dessin, le pastel, Xuriguéra, Editions Mayer.
Publication, Monographie, Edition B. Soulié.
Publication, Monographie, Edition du Bout du Monde.