CVBLU03Y18 Sculpture

Cyril Verdavainne is a New York based painter and sculptor. Born in 1978 in Casablanca, Morocco, Mr. Verdavainne attended the Centre International De Valbonne as well as Blake College and Central Saint Martins in London. He graduated from Parsons School of Design in 2001. Cyril Verdavainne is an expressionist and a story teller. Born a talented illustrator and watercolor artist, he made a living as a commercial illustrator and fashion designer. In 2000, Mr. Verdavainne started experimenting with 2-dimensional works in metal. On paper and canvas, he slowly became more interested in the emotional meaning of the trace rather than its esthetic quality. Soon, his work stopped being inspired by the physical world and became a pictural translation of a feeling, an ideological concept. In 2010, the artist discovered the use of color pigments and experimented with texture, applying it to metal and stone. He produced his first 3-dimensional sculptures in 2012. Today, Cyril Verdavainne focuses exclusively on his conceptual work. For his latest exhibit in New York last year, Cyril Verdavainne decided to show the very progression of his career. Starting with his figurative pencil studies of the human body, the artist then introduced strong acrylic strokes that seem to express a desire to experiment with the primitive expression of the trace on the canvas. The liquid acrylic is applied in a way that allows its chalk architecture to appear. The trace is raw and thick with conviction. Texture is created with insets of metal, copper wire, glues and acrylics. The 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional works are narrative as well, but in a very different way; the viewer becomes the story teller. The lyric pieces are assembled with a mixture of paper, decaying metal composites and covered with smooth radiant color pigment. These "˜objects' are in fact question marks. They call for the viewer's imagination in creating a story with a possible beginning and an ending. Each one of these sculptures represents a moment in time. The pieces appear to be works in progress, unfinished and suspended in time between birth and decay, much like us.