SÉBASTIEN FRÈRE’ EXHIBITION AT THE CHÂTEAU

Until 27 October

Castle open from 10am to 6pm

Last admission: 45 minutes before closing time

Guided tours: 10.30am and 2.30pm, other times available on request (contact the château or the tourist office).

The department of the pyrénées orientales presents – expos 66 – Sébastien Frère Aigües

opening on friday 6 september at 6.30pm

sebastienfrere.fr

Sébastien Frère lives and works in the foothills of the Albères massif. 

He grew up in an artists' house, surrounded by master paintings, art books and the works of his father Henri Frère, a painter, engraver and sculptor, friend and disciple of Aristide Maillol. His mother Raphaëlle was the daughter of the great Catalan poet Josep Sebastià Pons. The sculptor from Banyuls sur Mer and the poet from Ille sur Têt would meet here in the summer. This home was the cradle of his artistic awakening, not to mention the names of friendly painters such as François Desnoyer and Germain Bonel, among others, who frequented it. These excellent examples undoubtedly influenced his style, which really asserted itself through the practice of the arts of fire. He sought a harmony that linked refined calligraphy to the rich effects of enamel. This discipline is at the root of his sure touch. The environment as a primary source of inspiration 

Frère's work is inseparable from his environment. Living in the middle of nature in a mill surrounded by tall trees, he enjoys an inexhaustible source of inspiration and it is a whole world of rocks, water and trees that emerge from his canvases … 

Approach

Commenting on a painting entitled Le grand plouf, Sébastien Frère says, ‘Memory and imagination are strange. So my latest large-format painting on canvas took shape from a memory of a deep abyss in which I used to fish as a child. I wanted to show the reflections of rocks, foliage and, first of all, the sky in the dark water.      Once in place, these celestial reflections took precedence over the first project, flooding it with the shimmer of marine light contemplated the day before. The old image was overlaid by the fresh memory of the last one, leaving the first composition still visible. 

Imagination and memory play a central role in his creative process. His approach is instinctive and spontaneous. These transformations can transform a woman into a bird or give human form to stones, testifying to the fluidity and richness of her imagination. 

What unites all her works is texture. On canvas, it can be the simple jagged trace of a roller passing over a broad, straightforward white-on-black monochrome line, while on another canvas, the surfaces are worked by superimposing glazes, creating a unique depth and complexity.  On paper, he prefers the transfer technique, seeking to summon the accidents of the print to enrich a rapid composition. This approach to immediacy reminds him of the exclamation of his painter friend Germain Bonel: Ah … to make a successful work out of a pochade!

Delphine Jonckheere

In parallel with the Collioure exhibition, Sébastien Frère will be exhibiting in the chapel of the Casa Restany in Amélie les Bains until 3 November, and in the autumn at the Atelier Hermann, avenue Foch in Perpignan. 

sebastienfrere.fr