Richard Texier - Biography

Richard Texier develops his work, often monumental, both in sculpture and painting.

Born in Niort in 1955, Texier spent his winters in the Marais Poitevin and his summers in Sables-d'Olonne, where his parents ran a bazaar.

Milking a cow at the end of the day was the origin, at the age of 9, of his artistic vocation. The milk from two cans spilled by the child mixed with the black water from a conch forms like a milky way. This image triggers his desire to create:

"I may have become a sculptor that day by methodically squeezing cows' teats. My recent works owe a little to this gelatin-erotic activity. The sensual mystery of fluid mechanics still inspires the mental activity of artists" .

The ocean is one of the central themes of his inspiration. Until 1989, he used in his works various objects recovered from the coast (corroded zinc, driftwood, rusty iron, debris and fragments). After primary studies in Niort, he discovered art in sixth grade thanks to Lagarde and Michard where a painting by Yves Tanguy, "Day of Silence", reinforced his appetite for painting.

Richard Texier is “traumatized by space” as he likes to define himself. His need for large creative terrestrial spaces is consistent with the nomadism he claims to be. His painting speaks of the world, of the cosmos, of the difficulty of each person to find their way in the complexity of the universe: "To paint is to mix the matter of the world, it is to plunge two hands into the jar of the universe and tickle the mystery of the world . The spinning top, present in almost all of his paintings, embodies the mobility of all things.

1967, became passionate about surrealist experiences and produced his first paintings, then moved to Paris to study architecture, frequented museums assiduously, and discovered primitive and Flemish painting.

1976, left for the United States, but kept a workshop in Paris until 1983.

1977, a year after his architecture thesis, wrote “Constructions d’après nature”.

1981, defended his doctoral thesis in visual arts, "Moon" and "Landscape", and obtained the distinction "Very good".

1985, organized his first traveling exhibition in four French museums. The National Contemporary Art Fund in Paris acquires one of his works for the first time.

1988, the French State commissioned a monumental work on Human Rights from him. “The Suite of Human Rights”, at the time the largest State order placed at the royal factory of Aubusson, includes seven tapestries whose weaving is carried out by hand by 67 master weavers over seven month.

1991, adopts a wilder technique, painting a series of works on calcined hardboard and bitumen paper: materials that he mistreats, scratches and tears. A year later, his sculptures made up of mythical objects in wood, riveted sheet metal, bronze and hemp rope were exhibited for the first time in Paris. He also runs a nomadic workshop at the Pavilion of Culture in Moscow.

1994, created his first monumental bronze sculpture "Toupie nomade", then, the following year, "The invention of the world, Eclipse machines, Mechanics to ogle" (wall pieces and small-format sculptures with objects of misused, assembled with bronze, lead, wood and glass).

1996, the French state ordered three monumental tapestries from him.

Since 2000

2002, painted and stayed in New York, then a three-month nomadic workshop took him to the Cordouan lighthouse as an official painter of the Navy.

2004, He made the academic sword of his friend Zao Wou-Ki. Nomadic workshop in Shanghai. Fervent welcome in China where he created immense sculptures and paintings including Esprit du temps , a monumental sculpture for the largest avenue in Shanghai.

2007 to 2013, numerous exhibitions in Asia. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Yangon.

2013 Installation of 11 monumental sculptures on Orchard Road in Singapore.

2015, Gallimard publishes "Nager" by Richard Texier then, in 2017 his fiction "Le Grand M", followed in 2018, still at Gallimard by "Zao" where Richard Texier reveals his friendship with Zao Wou-ki: their meeting in Morocco , at the beginning of the nineties, until the death of the Chinese painter in 2013. Installation of "Angel Bear", monumental sculpture in front of the Gare du Nord in Paris.

2018, Publication of the “Elastogenesis Manifesto” published by Fata Morgana. Filming of a documentary on the artist and his concept of "Elastogenesis".

2019, Presentation in Paris, Downtown gallery, of a selection of everyday sculptures from the bestiary created by the artist for over thirty years. Publication by Gallimard of “The Glow Worm Hypothesis”.

2021, Edition with Yoyo Maeght of a print.

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