Philippe Compagnon

Biography

Born in 1951 in Jonzac in Charente-Maritime, Philippe Compagnon has lived in Paris since the 1980s. A complete artist, he mainly works in painting, sculpture, drawing and photography; but also print, edition and video. The year 1978 marked a turning point in his career, considering that he had reached the end of figuration, he painted a still life representing the decomposed elements of a bicycle. It is around this theme of the bicycle, straight lines, radius plots, and curved lines, tire segments, that Philippe Compagnon is gradually dropping the references to reality to enter into abstraction. In the mid-1980s, his work became more radical and took place in geometric abstraction. Compagnon abandons nuanced shades in favor of black graphics enclosing flat areas of bright colors. Likewise, during this period his work favored the scarcity of traits. Gradually, in the 1990s, emptiness and color disappeared from his paintings, in favor of swollen lines, crisscrossed lines, and shades of black and white. 

"Ideas do not come from outside at all. I think I am influenced by my surroundings, everyday life, publications, urban planning, etc. It feeds me, but everything I do doesn't correspond at all to a reality. They are not a representation of reality. Many things interest me: the shiny and the matt, the fat and the lean, the contrast of black and white, the warm colors and the cold colors. The result is that there is a composition, there is a force ..."

Philippe Compagnon

Exhibitions selected

2016 - Archives révées, mémoire de peintre, Maison d'Art Contemporain Chailloux, Fresnes.

2014 (exposition collective) - Une galerie - un regard, Galerie Pixi, Paris.

2014 (exposition en duo) - Pourquoi pas de foudre, Le Pavillon, Pantin.

2013 (exposition collective) - 7+1 Architektur, Volumen, Räumlichkeit, Galerie Jordan-Seydoux, Berlin.

2013 (exposition collective) - BuntStrichBleiStift, Galerie Bernard Jordan, Zürich.

2013 - Dessins 1984 - 2012, Galerie Bernard Jordan, Zürich.

2013 - Salon du dessin contemporain Drawing Now, Paris.

2013 - PLC  punto-línea-curva, Contemporáneo  Centro  Cultural  Borges, Buenos Aires.

2006 - Murs peints, Musée Matisse, Cateau-Cambrésis, Hôtel de Sponeck, Montbéliard.

2004  -  Cube, La Halle, Villefranche-de-Rouergue.

2001  -  Abstractions faites, Musée du Donjon, Niort.