Mathieu BONARDET:
In Mathieu Bonardet’s work, draftsmanship centers around primary physical
action and material: drawing lines with graphite. These repetitive lines are
both corporeal and temporal inscriptions of the artist’s gesture. The tension
generated between two given elements – attraction, rejection, rupture,
distance, disparity – nourishes Bonardet’s work and gives body to his diptychs.
His drawing practice goes far beyond the confines of a sheet of paper: first
with filmed performance or photographic documentation of actions (notably
the photographic series Ligne(s), 2011 featured on the cover of Roven
in 2014, and later shown in the König gallery in Berlin in 2017, or Fracture II,
2015 acquisitioned by the FRAC Normandie Rouen) then moving to a three
dimensional practice. His work now moves between sculpture and drawing,
one nourishing the other, as graphite responds to steel and vice versa.
After the closing of the galerie Jean Brolly where Bonardet was represented
for over seven years, he now joins the galerie ETC.
