Marc Desgrandchamps

Born in 1960 in Sallanches, France, French painter and engraver Marc Desgrandchamps lives and works in Lyon. After studying at Paris Beaux-Arts from 1978 until 1981, Zürcher gallery gave him the chance to show his first solo exhibition there in Paris and represented him from 1995 until 2015. His recognition was solidified with a first retrospective at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, then in 2011 at the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Furthermore, he was made an officer of the Order of Arts and Letters in September 2016.

This contemporary artist regularly returns to Italy. As such it may be a possible source of inspiration; for example the ways Giorgio De Chirico organises space, and the decomposition of the movement of Eadweard Muybridge's chronophotographic experiments. His simplified treatment of female figures may also resemble those of Matisse.

Marc Desgrandchamps is a figurative artist. Indeed, he depicts bodies and landscapes. However, he seems to prefer form to subject. He paints or engraves what he sees, but also what he imagines; taking us into a parallel world where we can see through bodies and objects. Marc Desgrandchamps plays with effects of transparency and dripping paint, leading some critics to talk of his "liquid ghosts". The artist himself says that his work is: "a painting of doubt, doubt of the figure, doubt of the presence, even doubt of the painting". He pushes the limits of figuration to the extreme by drawing inspiration from several artistic fields; from photography to music, literature and even cinema.