FEDERICO INFANTE
F RÉDÉRIC DE P R U N
FRÉD ÉRIC D EP RUN
535 west 25th street, nyc | 212.627.4444 www.bdgny.com cover: detail from Les tambours 47” x 47” | opposite: Les tambours 47” x 47” | above: Le Fils 19½” x 19½”
2 | Hestia et les croix 47” x 47”
Devant la maison 47” x 47” | 3
4 | Retour de chasse 47” x 47”
Les trois maisons 47” x 47” | 5
FRÉDÉRIC DEPRUN Frédéric Deprun was born in 1968 in Versailles, France, and now lives and works in Lyon. He was awarded a diploma from the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Lyon in 1992 and the Agrégation d’Arts Plastiques (an advanced diploma in plastic arts generally taken by students who wish to teach) in 1994, but never wanted to teach, instead choosing to devote himself entirely to his personal artistic works. Following his final degree show at ELAC (Etablissement Lyonnais d’Art Contemporain — the Lyon modern art center), and his first experience of a double exhibition with the Chapeau Rouge gallery (Avignon) and the Green Street Gallery (New York) in 1998, he has actively presented his work within France and throughout Europe since 1999. Over the years he has gained rich experience collaborating with a number of groups and galleries, including the Scarecrow group in 1998 (Saint-Tropez), the Galerie GNG (Paris), the Galerie D’Este (Montreal), the Galerie Soleil sur la Place (Lyon), “la Spirale” arts center (Décines, Lyon) and the Sheridan Gallery (London). His most recent individual exhibition, Irréalité, was presented at the “Galerie Pierrick Touchefeu” in Sceaux, France in 2013.
SELECT SOLO EXHIBITIONS
SELECT GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2013 Galerie Touchefeu, Sceaux, France 2013 Espace Lyinc, Lyon, France 2013 Galerie Bertand Gillig, Strasbourg, France 2012 Espace Dream on, Paris, France 2012 Galerie Gilbert Riou, Lyon, France 2012 La Spirale, Tobbogan, Décines, France 2009 Les Mondes Réversibles, Limonest, France 2008 Exposition Atelier Diderot Lyon, France 2008 Toy Dump, Tout au fond de l’allée, Lyon, France 2007 Espace IOMA, Grenoble, France 2006 Galerie Soleil sur la place, Lyon, France 2004 Galerie Soleil sur la place, Lyon, France 2002 Galerie GNG, Paris, France
2013 START Strasbourg, France 2009 Enchères MBM/Brocuse 2008 Alternative Exposition Project, Rome, Italy 2007 Art Basel - Galerie Alice Sheridan, Basel, Switzerland 2006 GSP - salon ARTENIM, Nîmes, France 2005 STAR’T, Strasbourg, France 2004 Artelys, Bourg, France 2004 Green street events, New York 2003 Salon International d’Art Plastique, Niort, France 2002 Salon quai Branly, Paris, France 2001 Les Monuments - palais des Congrès, Villeurbanne, France 2001 Groupe Scarecrow, Saint-Tropez
2014 sees Frédéric Deprun’s work displayed in the Galerie Touchefeu in Sceaux, la Galerie Bertrand Gillig in Strasbourg, the Louise DS Galerie in Brussels as well as Bertrand Delacroix Gallery in New York. 6 |
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THE ARTIST Frédéric Deprun has been producing resolutely figurative pictorial and poetic artwork for over fifteen years. He invites the spectator to discover his allegorical paintings — little pieces of theatre involving toys and figurines. He follows the practice of combining technical resources with the classic medium of oil on canvas. The artwork is constructed with a focus on distorting his subjects to bring them to life that is confronted with recurrent themes and a type of personal mythology. His work is not driven by the ideas of defending concepts or breaking and crossing the aesthetic barrier. When he paints, he only thinks about the image he is creating, a playground marked with specific anchorage points that develop its focus through successive experimentation. Frédéric Deprun remains very committed to the realization process: creating little pieces of theatre within natural landscapes (fields, ponds, forests), or workshop productions that use artificial lighting
8 | Les quatres merveilles (diptych) 51” x 63 ½”
to help construct a constantly evolving polymorphous world. The artwork is therefore conceived as a type of hyper receptivity that forms the initial ideas; successive sketches create the representation that is finally fixed on the canvas. Thus, the painting is often viewed as a diorama within the frame, a type of box where the drawings are superimposed without depth of field. The attention he gives to the accumulated details allows him to create emotional contrasts with obsessional subjects; the child, the family, the figurine, the relationship with the other (the foreign). The way that the figurines are integrated into their pictorial environments is the key to understanding the painter’s approach. Frédéric Deprun considers each of his works to be the reflection, the anteroom of a drama that builds up or, conversely, the portrayal of a newly peaceful space.
Les quatres merveilles (diptych) 51” x 63 ½” | 9
10 | Le ruisseau 47” x 47”
Hotel Leman 47” x 47” | 11
12 | Le père prodigue 47” x 47”
L’invitation 63” x 78¾” | 13
14 | Père et Fils 31½” x 31½”
Scène de chasse 47” x 47” | 15
© 2014 Frédéric Deprun
16 | Poisson d’or 69” x 78¾”
Affolement 45” x 63¾”
Papa champion 19½” x 19½”