BIOGRAPHICAL
NOTES
Claude Bolduc was born in Alma, Quebec
(Canada) on the 1st of January 1955. On January 4th 1987, birthday
of the primitive painter Arthur Villeneuve (Claude Bolduc's
first mentor), Claude begins to paint as a self-taught artist.
At this time, the painter stages his own memories and political
or social topics, in a style that could be described as 'naive'.
This can be detected in the dream-like madness of his world
where the references, stemming from a personal symbolic system,
are plentiful.
Around 1992, Claude Bolduc's art enters
a new era. The painter engages himself from beyond the anecdotal
and proceeds further into his exploration of the invisible.
He draws most of his inspiration from the source of his own
impulses, driven by the sublimated vision of his very personal
interpretation of his environment. In this way, he attempts
to clearly reveal the limits of the parallel universes of consciousness
and unconsciousness. To achieve this, he opposes a monochrome
nuance, where a multitude of strange beings evolve in a sensual
and vivid dreamlike reverie, to a palette of bright and strong
colours used in the foreground elements which present a clear
statement.
In 1997, Claude Bolduc's move to Geneva
(Switzerland) pushes him to a more in depth and uncensored research
of his particular symbolic system. In a similar state of mind
to that of Jérôme Bosch, his thoughts now reach
further towards the greater existential meaning. Through the
most ambiguous of contemporary ethical themes, he explores the
dark and uncertain avenues opened up by the recent exponential
scientific developments and discoveries (pollution, consumption
of resources, nuclear threat, mans attempt to control all life,
global illnesses…). For Claude Bolduc, the announced reign
of the "Man-God", is a frightening concept. This is
why his pictures confront Eros and Thanatos without restraint.
The painter forces them into a dancing struggle where Judeo-Christian
symbolism is revisited through the very singular and exacerbated
prism of the artist's vision.
|
The artist Claude Bolduc is unclassifiable.
It is in his opposition to current abstraction that he
sets himself up as a caustic witness of his time. He strongly
adheres to the pure madness of outsider's art, without
denying the academic influences drawn at random from precious
finds of which he creates very personal re-interpretations.
Claude Bolduc remains true to the credo of his early works:
To paint because it's necessary…
|
SOLO
EXHIBITIONS
GROUP
EXHIBITIONS
COMPETITIONS
CATALOGS
|
