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Vincent Dugast

Biography


Vincent Dugast, Autoportrait

Vincent Dugast, Autoportrait


Vincent Dugast was born in Nantes and currently works in Paris. His extensive training in the history and philosophy of art has given him a global vision and a distinctive style.

His photography explores the relationship between the perception of the world and its interpretation, making the viewer question what he knows. Dugast creates a simulacrum of reality with “figural” images, a notion developed by the philosopher, Jean-François Lyotard.

Between 1996 and 1999, Dugast developed a series of paintings and collages entitled “Le Spectateur et l’Oeuvre.” Starting from the point of view that a work of art does not really exist unless it is seen, he made the interaction between the art and its observers the focus of this study.

Inspired by a visit to art galleries in New York, Dugast decided to free himself from the constraints of form. His new style used only large Chinese brushes, a black and brown palette, and cotton paper in order to concentrate his energy on the essentials, the movement, the material and the background.

Between 2006 and 2013, he produced a series of work titled Germinations, Heraldic Figures, and Dialogues of Monsters. Dugast distinguishes between the subjective world that we see, which is different for each observer, and the objective world that exists independent of us. His work approaches this brutal and ancestral world, a world that exists before light gives volume and color to its forms. He creates a language without light or volume, based on twelve “heraldic figures.” From these, he has developed a series of work on germination and the dialogues of monsters, representing the passage from the primitive world to the world of language. Starting in 2008, he reintroduced color and light into this world.

In the same year, Dugast discovered the primeval forests of Poland and the Baltics. The sight of these immense expanses, savage and somber, gave him a profound sensation of well-being. To capture the feeling of this place of protection, he created large drawings using just paper from the trees, pigments from the soil, and water from the foliage.

The culmination of his work on germination came in 2013 when Dugast developed “Liquid thoughts.” Using a fluid painting technique, he brings his formal language in contact with the paper. The reaction produces what he calls a magma, bringing together the liquid and the vibrant surface of the paper.

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