A bon port / At good port Print

BIOGRAPHY LO (Laurent Torregrossa) was born in 1964 in Mount St. Martin (France). He spends his childhood in Gorcy, a small town in Lorraine near Longwy. The drawing has always been part of his life. Younger, he dreamed of becoming a cartoonist. Surprisingly, he makes micro-mechanical studies. At 18, he left for the French Riviera. The dream of his youth, always present in his mind, for a moment fades away for the benefit of waves, wind and sea, but finally leads him back to a School of Fine Arts (École des Beaux-Arts) in Toulon. Laurent Torregrossa, nicknamed "LO" (diminutive of Laurent), shares his summers and winters between windsurfing on the French Riviera and skiing in the Alps. It is only in 1989, when he puts the final touch on his first fresco in Giens, that he really thinks of a career as a painter. He gets to be known first in Europe, where he has a great success with his marines and his hyperrealism. In 1997, he gets married to a Canadian woman and a year later, in 1998, he makes art exhibitions in galleries of the Old Quebec. He settles for good in Canada in December 2000. In October 2006, he moves to Cap-Rouge, a western district of Quebec city. In that period of time, he receives his Canadian citizenship. Since 2012, he lives alternately in Cap-Rouge (Quebec) and in Ottawa (Ontario) which is his second source of inspiration after the St. Lawrence River.