Discover the contemporary work of Stephane Picard
Stephane PICARD is 64 years old, he was born in Périgueux and lives there. Interested in the arts and sports since his adolescence, he had to orient himself under parental pressure towards "serious professions". He therefore became in turn, Bailiff for about ten years and Lawyer for a little over twenty years.
Since his youngest age, his interest in faces has been almost obsessive. He began by drawing them in middle school, but feeling that he was a poor drawer, he began to photograph them and finally sculpt them, clay proving to be the most suitable and best-mastered medium for expressing his obsession.
These faces are men's faces, in no way should we see any machismo or anti-feminism in them; it is simply a matter of translating expressions and feelings that are attributed more to men than to women and which, if they are carried by both genders, are expressed more openly in the chaos and brutality of a masculine face than in the gentleness and balance of a feminine face: anger, indignation, fear, violence, resignation, heavy and dark sadness.
Nothing is joyful in Stéphane PICARD but everything is strong. Strong as his inspirations which range from the characters of the novels of Kessel, Conrad, Loti, Pasternak, London, Dumas, Pratt, to the faces that the rugby players of the front lines of yesteryear willingly offered as sacrifices, passing by the heroes of Greek mythology.
Stéphane PICARD defines himself as a "sculptor of men" but above all as a "sculptor of looks". The sculpture of faces is only a pretext for him to freeze looks like a polaroid would do, without his subject knowing, thus stealing the reflection of his soul. And to be certain, the eyes are black holes sinking into the depths of the mind.
To do this, in a style that he himself describes as "beyond classical", the artist sculpts faces of men who exist only in his head, of eras that no longer exist except in his head.
