Frédérique

Domergue

Artist Frédérique Domergue (1963) is into metal. She explores this material, comprised of a wide range of colours and textures, in all its diversity. The challenge for her is the misappropriation: She stamps the metal with its ordinarily associated coldness and brutality. Through polishing and oxidation, she bestows upon it a warmth, softness and sensuality which makes you want to caress the oxidized surface of her paintings that have become all radiant and silky.

Because the sheen of metal alters, works are often drawn into a perpetual evolution : they become proof of time passing. By the same token, bit by bit the oxidation transforms the work as though it were living.

Frédérique Domergue gets her inspiration from nature and the sea-side. Her paintings evoke landscapes, skies and seas that are sometimes calm and tranquil sometimes stormy, dark and ablaze. The horizontal line around which many of her compositions revolve is the place where land, sea and sky mix and mingle. The very place where the elements fuse.

Growing up with her grandparents, a painter and a dress-maker, Frédérique Domergue early on developed a taste for working materials and their relation in an experimental process. This is what first led her to furniture design (wood, metal-framed). This largely experimental process allowed her to develop an intimate knowledge of a wide variety of metals: bronze, zinc, pewter, titanium, steel… The passion and meticulousness of the finishing touch gradually drew her towards an essentially artistic approach. Liberated from the practical side, Frédérique Domergue now creates paintings in which her technical skill and artistic creativity are clearly expressed.