Jean-Frédéric Bourdier

Jean-Frédéric Bourdier was born in Banyuls-sur-Mer, France, in 1956. A self-taught photographer, painter and sculptor, he belongs to the fifth generation of a family involved in painting and photography.

He began to explore sculpture in the early 1990s, progressively making it the centre of his artistic activity. An admirer of Henry Moore, Constantin Brancusi, Isamu Noguchi and Hans Arp, he has developed an eclectic career, without identifying with any particular school. Spontaneity guides his creative process, accompanied by a search for formal solutions that depart from paths already taken.

His work begins with the discovery of the stones he chooses and with an attentiveness to the qualities that remain hidden within them. Discreet details, which might go unnoticed, become the starting point for the construction of the sculptures. In intervening in a material formed over millennia, Bourdier seeks to give it an identity and a presence of its own. The resulting forms invite observation and leave room for the imagination of those who contemplate them.