Christophe Boulanger

In the beginning was the sketch...

Multidisciplinary artist, Christophe sketches life with his fast and vibrant stroke. These sketches dance in notebooks whose stacking over the years forms a wobbling tower. 

From these sketches are born engravings, monotypes, ceramics, paintings, sculptures, photographs, trophies, stools, benches and chairs... Insatiable explorer of the material, he shapes it with the bold and fresh hand of beginners. And his sketches come to life in the image of their vivid strokes. Series where each motif is unique.

Each exploration is a new chapter written along the lines of the new material and the new gestures, with a palpable tension between the childish and unconscious joy of venturing into new territories and the inner limitations of adulthood. The surrender is joyful and painful like a tango. This research is enamored with old-fashioned techniques such as Sevres porcelain, copperware, pyrography and basketry.

The latest creations explore wood in a flirtation between furniture design and art sculpture. The original sketch is always in the background. It inspires curves and rhythms, sensuality and modeling. The result is the birth of forms that are accurate, surprising, intriguing, sometimes burlesque, but of an undeniable beauty. A mysticism which reminds the trembling universes of the Beauty and the beast of Cocteau where the poetry disputes with the function.

Outside of all etiquette, there is in Christophe and his works a Don Quixote-like panache, a dream of freedom escaped from a childhood hemmed in by conventions, a hold-up where nevertheless a form of truth is revealed. In this kingdom, nothing is usurped. The lesson starts again and again. For our greatest delight...

Mai Khanh Pham To

Exhibitions

2023 Gallery Armel Soyer - Megève
2022 Naïshin Gallery - Lille
2022 REVELATION fair - Grand Palais - Paris
2019 International Biennale of Vallauris (Ceramic)
2018 Solo show BIGBANG (France)
2018 Art Up Show (France)
2017 Contemporary Art Show Namur (Belgium)
2016 Gallery Schema Project (Brooklyn US)
2016 Paper Paris (Paris)

Residencies

2020/23 Cabinetmaking workshop "the blue factory" (Brittany)
2019 Metal hammering in fes (Morocco)
2016 Draw International Caylus (France)
2015 Bau Institute Otranto (Italie)