The artist

Richard FAUGUET

Born in 1963 in La Châtre (FR) 

Lives and works in Châteauroux (FR) 

Represented by the gallery Art: Concept, Paris (FR)

Meeting with the artist in his studio

There are those artists for whom art is above all mental politics and a philosophy of life, an approach fundamentally out of step with the real, a way of resisting the obvious and the inexorable. This irresistible need to jostle with the norm and with categories enables their work to draw upon the power to project art into life and communicate an energetic feeling of liberty. Richard Fauguet is one such artist. He makes a work of great finesse and intelligence yet is unclassifiable and puzzling, so much so that we might ask ourselves whether it is a perpetual pun, whether it is the product of an imperturbable and necessary humour of resistance, or whether it results from a more despairing kind of irony. He is a sculptor, and even a compulsive constructor, but all his work is rooted in the constant practice of drawing, where he can combine shapes and organize confrontations at leisure. The most varied occurrences and treatments of the line are a pretext to create visual anagrams and spoonerisms, whose spirit animates all of his work. Hybridization and displacement are the keywords of his practice through which he joyfully juggles with the most extreme references and heterogeneous materials.
A ping-pong table with the path of the balls visually materialized reproduces the principle of a chrono-photograph by Muybridge, a Vassili chair in stove pipes, silhouettes of masterpieces from art history cut outs of refurbishing plastic or even figurines made by assembling coloured glass receptacles… each new piece is jubilant with inventiveness. His universe takes delight in blending the borrowings from high culture with popular cultures, mixes the genres and transposes the materials. “Making chic out of cheap” is his watchword. Inverting values is the risk he takes with each new piece, passing from drawing to volume, distorting the scales, looking for the transformation and formal shifts of perception in structured and decorative motifs.

Olivier Grasser

Learn more :
https://www.galerieartconcept.com/fr/artiste/richard-fauguet/