Patrick Chappert-Gaujal was born in 1959 in Bédarieux in France. Between 1975 and 1980 he studied at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Perpignan. He lives in La Franqui by the Mediterranean which provides him with material and inspiration. He is also influenced by the sometimes barren, sometimes gentle landscape surrounding him.

We have represented Patrick Chappert-Gaujal from his early age as an artist and followed his artistic career which has developed from his imaginative paintings in pastels to his beautiful Totem - painted sculptures made of driftwood that the sea washed up onto the shore - followed by refined black-and-white drawings and striking negative photographs. He has varied his choice of materials, but his typical artistic idiom is easily recognizable, even though it has evolved and been refined through the different techniques and materials.

In 2008 Patrick Chappert-Gaujal was asked to join the previous generation of artists and make his mark in the town’s art history at Le Musée du sable in Le Barcarès. This museum was established in the 1960s along the beach walk and comprises a collection of sculptures by about 40 artists, silhouetted against the azure blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea. For this exhibition Chappert-Gaujal found a new form of expression that resulted in magnificent iron sculptures which he leaves to rust. The rust plays with the light and makes the sculpture more alive, so that it shifts from golden-red at dawn and dusk to black in the bright daylight.

The artist himself describes his sculptures as a balance between filled and empty spaces, and they draw your gaze to both the solid shapes and to the spaces within the sculpture.