Sophie Favre

Sculptures

March 23 - May 2, 2013

Sophie Favre. The doubting couple

Sophie Favre was born in 1950 into a family of artists: her mother was a ceramist, her father a graphic artist, painter and draughtsman. After studying at the Beaux Arts in Paris, she learned to work with clay with her mother, and quickly developed a passion for this material, which enabled her to imagine and give shape to characters and animals, first on the wheel like ceramists, then by modeling. Loaded with subtle feelings, Sophie Favre's "creatures" have the gift of eliciting identification through minute details. Although they are not caricatures, they seem to assert their comical, awkward character, and this is what makes them furiously endearing. Today, Sophie Favre's work is internationally recognized and features in major collections, and the magazine "Miroir de l'Art" elected the artist one of the "Revelations of the Year 2012".

Sophie Favre in Connaissance des Arts
Sophie Favre in l'Officiel des Galeries et Musées.

"At first glance - like the artist's clay - you're cooked. The statuette hits the bull's eye. Something embraces your heart, surprises you, enchants you, confronts you with the unexpected, delivers a new version of things and of the world, away from overweening pretensions and lessons in things, all in the blink of an eye. It's unstoppable. Sophie Favre's bestiary, Favre-la-Sage, enters the world of your representations of the world. It's a coherent little universe with real and troubling evocative power. Favre, la faiseuse et la sage! (Interesting synthesis, the one who thinks and acts, who makes, who works with his hands). Favre, the fabulist, the poetess. The artist, the one who looks at and renders the world in a new, charming version. I mean: who exerts a charm, carmenA magical song that expresses a marvellous, bewitching music of the soul. [...]
[...]The look in Favre's eyes, their formidable quality of presence, their striking "humanity" (a fabulous specular effect) or the way they move us deeply, move us, upset us or amuse us, qualify and enhance this fascinating work, whose presence on my blog is a source of great joy to me. The work is a long and intelligent reflection on the art of pleasing, of holding attention, of seducing, of suggesting, of touching without ever belonging to the closed and exclusive world of homologated beauty."
Denys-Louis Colaux
Novelist, short story writer, poet.