FOURNIER Gérard, sculpture, permanent artist of Galerie Capazza since 1995

First, the pleasure of discovery when the stone calls to me by its natural form, its structure, its movement, its lines. Then, it is necessary to sit it, to find its balance which will reveal it and give it all its presence. To humanize it by introducing into this material an idea, a trace, which will be translated by an architecture of light: glass. Playing with the mineral, opacity and transparency. The light sometimes escapes or is trapped. To create the mystery, the unusual in the balance and harmony. My approach translates especially this deep need that I have to be in harmony with nature.


Gérard Fournier



Heart of basalt, horizon of Aubrac silhouette totem, polished and sensual son of Rouergue with a piercing look. He observes: the bell tower of Rodez massively openwork, arrow of light, the stones await him.


His eye sees the brilliance, the forces enclosed in the rocks that speak a secret language. Gérard Fournier marries the stones, opens the rocks, polishes and caresses, to reveal their lights to us: Granite set with crystal, basalt in fusion, slab of schist on glass. He reveals to us the intimacy of the entrails of this country which is dear to him.


Didier Fournials, curator - Glass Museum of Carmaux (France)

Biography

Born in 1948 in Rodez

Paints since the end of the 60s. Practiced intaglio engraving from 1976 to 1986.

Under the influence of engraving and the environment in which he lives, he works with schist and approaches sculpture.

Since 1990, his work on stone and glass occupies an important part, highlighting the art of the sculptor.

His works are regularly exhibited in galleries in France and abroad. They are also present in many private collections

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Exhibitions selection (since 1999)

2021  Enfances, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2020  Le torse d’une femme à la pureté d’un vase, grands courbes simples d’un fruit désiré, Parcours d’art contemporain autour d’Auguste Rodin, 1 exhibition, 5 locations, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay
Matière et Lumière, La Cabane, Tayrac

2019  Marc Champieux et Gérard Frounier, Galerie 21,Balma, Toulouse
L’Arbre c’est le temps rendu visible, collective exhibition Galerie Capazza, Nançay
Re-Naissance(s), collective exhibition, carte blanche à la Galerie Capazza, Hôtel Gouin, Tours

2018  Galerie d’art Attila, Salles-la-source, Rodez
Miroir des sentiments, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2017  Il est grand temps de rallumer les étoiles, collective exhibition, Galerie Capazza, Nançay

2015  Galerie Foch, Rodez (Aquarelles), France
Galerie 22, Coustellet, France

2014  Galerie Artes, Troyes, France

2013  Centre culturel, Rieupeyroux, France
Manoir Saint Felix, Rodez, France
Galerie 22 Jamoz, Coustellet, France
Cultural center, Conques, France

2012  Galerie Sordini, Marseille, France
Cultural Center, Conques, France

2011  Ares, France
Galerie d'Autane, Forcalquier, France

2010  Galerie Capazza, Nançay, France
Galerie 22, Coustellet, France

2009  Galerie Art-Pluriel, Lyon, France
Galerie Sordini, Marseille, France
“ Eden gardens ”, Cordes, France
Musée de Hyères, France

2008  Musée du verre, Retrospective, Carmaux, France

2007  Galerie Fusion, Toulouse, France
Galerie M. Cazin, Siniane la Rotonde, France

2006  Galerie L’ivre d’art, Rodez, France
Galerie Sordini, Marseille, France
Terra-mémoria, Bozouls, France
Galerie Art-Pluriel, Lyon, France

2005  Galerie Castang, Perpignan, France

2004  Galerie Art-Pluriel, Lyon, France
Galerie Sennacheribo (paintings), Barcelona, Spain

2003  Galerie Empreintes, Aydat, France
Galerie H.D. Nick, Aubais, France

2001  Galerie Fusion, Toulouse, France
Hôtel du département, Mende, France
Hôtel de ville, Rodez, France

2000  Galerie J. Betton, Lyon, France
Musée archéologique, Istres, France

1999  Galerie l’Acadie, Cajarc, France
European center, Conques, France
Contemporary Art Center, Schalkwijk, Netherlands

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Public collections

France
- Musée de Conches
- Musée du verre, Carmaux
- Fondation Datris, L’Isle sur la Sorgue

United States of America
- Scottsdale Museum, Arizona
- Mobile Museum, Alabama

Germany
- Musée de Bamberg

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The work of Gérard Fournier by Elodie Bernard (Paris, 1994)

The landscape around Gérard Fournier provides him with a rare and varied geogolical findings, because the region of Aveyron offers different aspects which are in fact very similar to one another.
So his native land aroused with in hime a passion for working with stone. He shows us the harmony of nature through his elaborate architectures made of stone and glass.
Inspired by the surrounding area, Gérard Fournier carries out his research on space and light. He brings the opaqueness of stone into opposition with the transparency of glass.
He works using different stones which are easily transformed and that the finds in pits: slate, shale, granite, marble, calcarous rocks, basalt that the combines with thin stripes of glass.
His sculptures are the outcome of long obersvations and much thinking. Because the sculptor is first and foremost under the shackles of his material: it is quite impossible to touch up a piece or to find two identical stones. Once the artist has commences his sculpture, he cannot go back.
It it through his sculptures that Gérard Fournier can find again a clos contact with the environment that he is fond of.
His work leaves a large part to instinct and spontaneity and he draws most of his inspiration from nature. He respects it and makes the most of it, taking into account the natural geometry of the shapes that he creates.
The rock carvings are caried out from drawings, according to the different criteria, encompassing natural faults, emphizing the main contours of the stone, creating a new dynamism and finding harmony and balance.
And thus he makes the most of the initial structure. The combination of glass and rock allows us to appreciate certain contrasts such constrats as between the opaqueness and transparency, the lightness and force and to create a feeling of weightlessness.

By grouping strict lines together to create space, the sculptor structures his material to put it on display and to give it motion, thus bringing it to life.
By way of its mysterious nature, the glass appears to move because of the infiltration of light. For Gérard Fournier every stone has its own past and he imagines what follows.
Nature and emotions inspire his sculptures. They reveal his liking for raw and forceful material, for the different and subtle shades of colour and for the variations dependent on the light and the weather.
Sometimes the alternations between coloured and transparent glass inspire in us peacefulness and moderation.
Being both simple – when the block is neither carved nor polished – and precious – when re.worked and polished; the artist’s hand has an invisible touche but at the same time we are aware of his quest for balance, moderation and rigour.
His sculptures fit well into their environment. There is no disruption but continuity. Besides when taken out of context, their real meaning becomes clear.
Gérard Fournier plays them off against time and observes their evolution.
He gives them an upward dynamics, expressive of man’s evolution.
These sculptures materialize a certain reflexion on the world around us, on the probles of today as well as the undeniable fact that man will have to respect more and more the laws of nature.
It is this which goes between his emotions and ideas.

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