Academically trained, P. Chappert-Gaujal has been painting since childhood and has been exhibiting proteiform work for 45 years from France to Sweden via China. Born in 1959 in Occitania, for him, adventure comes from the sea.
It is in his studio that P. Chappert-Gaujal embarks on new adventures.
By collecting salvaged objects of all kinds, rejected by the waves, he imagines and creates new works to give new life to these witnesses of our past and leave a trace of this passage.
Among this workshop with a thousand facets, with multiple smells, flavors and colors, we share part of the adventure created from nautical maps.
While vessels are abandoned at the bottom of the oceans, the found nautical maps give free rein to the imagination of the artist.
Planned routes, nautical miles covered, these maps were used by these adventurers of the big blue as a tool, as a guide, the ultimate goal of an unfinished journey.
He will take over the helm and captain of his trip to direct us to a terra incognita abstract projection of his mind.
His paintings bear the colors of the sea, the sun, the blood of sailors. His metal sculptures oxidize from the sea spray.
The crew could have sent us logbooks; the artist offers us his works as so many notebooks of life.
The journey continues with abstract sculptures, metal cutouts coordinated with his graphic works, sorts of views from the sky of an unknown universe.
A recent apprenticeship in the technique of porcelain during an exhibition in China aroused the desire to create small porcelain sculptures complementary to his work.
The key work of the exhibition is “Last call”, phone booth of the last call.
The use of mobile phones having made these cabins obsolete, France Telecom decided to destroy them. The artist managed to save 45 with the help of the Orange Foundation.
The artist’s ultimate call is for visitors to perpetuate memory. Let’s follow him in his walk, follow his steps, guess his thoughts and let the sea do the rest.