Press and Editorial
Loic Le Groumellec
03 September 2009Bill Gregory
» View Loic Le Groumellec exhibition
Annandale Galleries are proud to once more be showing the work of LOIC LEGROUMELLEC. Our first exhibition was in a group show ?Three Painters from Paris? along with Michael Weston and Jean-Charles Blais at Milburn + Arte Gallery in Pyrmont in 1987 and our most recent was at Annandale in 2003 ? a relationship with the art and artist that spans twenty-two years.
LOIC LEGROUMELLEC was born in Vannes, Brittany in 1953, studied at the Beaux-Arts in Rennes and lives and works in Paris where he has a massive studio outside the peripherique nearby the 17th arrondisement.
He lived as a youth nearby the town of Carnac in Brittany, a town famous for it?s lines of megaliths or menhirs. These are ancient stones set up in lines with as many as 300 in a single field. Sometimes farmhouses are nearby or even in the midst of these incredible monuments to an ancient and relatively unknown culture. Most of these were installed about five thousand years ago, many are huge ? as much as five metres in height and we still don?t know how they were installed or with any degree of certainty for what reason. Think Stonehenge. When the Christian missionaries came they often ?sanitized? these monuments to a bygone era either through ceremony or by scratching or carving crosses onto them. These menhirs and the houses surrounding them became the central subject matter of LEGROUMELLECS work, becoming an instantly recognizable image in the contemporary art world ? especially in Europe.
There is something mystical, almost haunting about his images which somehow throw a hook into the mind of a viewer. I have often received phone calls from buyers who ring me a week or so after seeing a show claiming ?they cannot get the images out of their minds?. They are at once placid and confronting. They carry the power and mystical sense of the past but also address the formal concerns of current culture and painting. The imagery is simple and economical in terms of line but carry many layers of meaning to different people. The ?platform? for lack of a better word (perhaps ?container? works as well) seems to allow the viewers to apply their own imagination and interpretation and is therefore very interactive. Once seen they are difficult to forget.
The current exhibition consists of an installation of nearly thirty small paintings, either 30 x 30 cm or 30 x 60 cm and two larger works. LEGROUMELLEC is known for the impact of his small works that are often acquired in pairs or groups.
Australians are familiar with his painting as works from near sell out shows in Sydney and Melbourne as far back as 1989 have circulated over the years and there is a major work in the National Gallery of Victoria.
Relatively unknown back in 1987, LEGROUMELLEC was one of the rising stars at the cutting edge gallery Yvon Lambert in Paris. Since then he has had nearly fifty solo shows in Europe (Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland) Japan, Canada and the USA. He moved to another Karsten Greve gallery (Paris, Cologne, NYC, St. Moritz) in the mid-nineties and now shows with Daniel Templon in Paris. This is the artist fifth solo show at Annandale Galleries.
» View Loic Le Groumellec exhibition
Annandale Galleries are proud to once more be showing the work of LOIC LEGROUMELLEC. Our first exhibition was in a group show ?Three Painters from Paris? along with Michael Weston and Jean-Charles Blais at Milburn + Arte Gallery in Pyrmont in 1987 and our most recent was at Annandale in 2003 ? a relationship with the art and artist that spans twenty-two years.
LOIC LEGROUMELLEC was born in Vannes, Brittany in 1953, studied at the Beaux-Arts in Rennes and lives and works in Paris where he has a massive studio outside the peripherique nearby the 17th arrondisement.
He lived as a youth nearby the town of Carnac in Brittany, a town famous for it?s lines of megaliths or menhirs. These are ancient stones set up in lines with as many as 300 in a single field. Sometimes farmhouses are nearby or even in the midst of these incredible monuments to an ancient and relatively unknown culture. Most of these were installed about five thousand years ago, many are huge ? as much as five metres in height and we still don?t know how they were installed or with any degree of certainty for what reason. Think Stonehenge. When the Christian missionaries came they often ?sanitized? these monuments to a bygone era either through ceremony or by scratching or carving crosses onto them. These menhirs and the houses surrounding them became the central subject matter of LEGROUMELLECS work, becoming an instantly recognizable image in the contemporary art world ? especially in Europe.
There is something mystical, almost haunting about his images which somehow throw a hook into the mind of a viewer. I have often received phone calls from buyers who ring me a week or so after seeing a show claiming ?they cannot get the images out of their minds?. They are at once placid and confronting. They carry the power and mystical sense of the past but also address the formal concerns of current culture and painting. The imagery is simple and economical in terms of line but carry many layers of meaning to different people. The ?platform? for lack of a better word (perhaps ?container? works as well) seems to allow the viewers to apply their own imagination and interpretation and is therefore very interactive. Once seen they are difficult to forget.
The current exhibition consists of an installation of nearly thirty small paintings, either 30 x 30 cm or 30 x 60 cm and two larger works. LEGROUMELLEC is known for the impact of his small works that are often acquired in pairs or groups.
Australians are familiar with his painting as works from near sell out shows in Sydney and Melbourne as far back as 1989 have circulated over the years and there is a major work in the National Gallery of Victoria.
Relatively unknown back in 1987, LEGROUMELLEC was one of the rising stars at the cutting edge gallery Yvon Lambert in Paris. Since then he has had nearly fifty solo shows in Europe (Germany, Spain, Switzerland, Belgium, Finland) Japan, Canada and the USA. He moved to another Karsten Greve gallery (Paris, Cologne, NYC, St. Moritz) in the mid-nineties and now shows with Daniel Templon in Paris. This is the artist fifth solo show at Annandale Galleries.