Stéphane Erouane Dumas, Septentrion

Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier presents ‘Septentrion,’ a new solo exhibition by Stéphane Erouane Dumas from February 8th to March 30th, 2024. This unreleased series, consisting of approximately fifty works – oils on canvas and paper as well as a dozen sculptures – will be an opportunity to celebrate the representation of the plant and mineral world, fundamental themes in the work of Stéphane Erouane Dumas.

Each piece possesses its own dynamic, never tiring, perceptible as it vibrates under the gaze. Birch trees and cliffs, as true ‘breathing lungs,’ inseparable subjects from his work as a draftsman-painter-sculptor, emerge in a new range of colors that blend pale pink or celadon green.

An ‘artistically captivating’ nature is how Stéphane Erouane Dumas defines what the generous nature offers him and from which he draws inspiration, especially in Normandy, in his studio in Varengeville-sur-Mer, a village of artists made famous by Claude Monet or Georges Braque. The alabaster coast embodies the ideal place where he can engage with the verticality of the cliffs that dot the landscape and the forests in which he can immerse himself, abundant with inspiring essences, such as birch trees.

‘For several years, I’ve multiplied representations of birch trees. I see in their bark a mineral aesthetic similar to that of cliffs: a chalky white punctuated by black spots akin to flint nodules anchored in the rock. I extract from nature a vocabulary of shapes and colors. Whatever the motif, I transform it, enlarge it, reduce it, and multiply it without ever making it disappear, to give it more power, so that it can tell something else.’

And when he feels the need to include lakes or other elements in his paintings that he doesn’t find on-site – neither in his Parisian studio nor in his Norman studio – he doesn’t hesitate to draw from his notebooks that have accompanied him during his various travels in Northern Europe – Norway, Finland, Lapland, Iceland… The artist conceives a contemplative work, a kind of hypnotic meditation sublimated by the emotion it generates both visually and mentally, erasing the boundaries between figuration and abstraction in passing. ‘I take the vocabulary of nature to go elsewhere,’ states Stéphane Erouane Dumas, effectively dragging the viewer in his wake.

Just as in his paintings, his sculptures also celebrate nature and strengthen his connection with this environment, both vegetal and mineral. One of his large bronzes has taken its place on a cliff overlooking the sea, about twenty kilometers from Varengeville, just like a recently installed ‘bronze cliff’ permanently placed in the park of Château de Lascours, between Uzès and Anduze (Gard).

Could this be an invitation to discover the living and working environment where the artist and his family evolve? Here, the story is written within the family and inevitably with music, where the notes of composers like Miles Davis, Philip Glass, or Max Richter alternate with necessary silences. In fact, both Maïlys Seydoux-Dumas, Stéphane’s wife – a graduate in Decorative Arts, also a painter, engraver, and creator of jewelry with two studios close to her husband’s – and their daughter Pauline-Rose – a plastic artist graduated from the Beaux-Arts in Paris – or their son Lucien, an architect and designer graduated from the school of architecture in Versailles and école Boulle, and his design agency ‘Matang,’ which saw two of his furniture pieces selected for the Villa Noailles prize in 2023, are united members of a family who share the same passion: that of creation.

The exhibition will take place from February 8th to March 30th, 2024

at Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier 8, rue Debelleyme 75003 Paris

The opening will be on Thursday, February 8th, from 6 pm to 9 pm