Raymond now lives and works in Lisbon, Portugal.[2]
Biography
Marc Raymond was born on 8 November 1968, in Martigny, in the Swiss canton of Valais. He grew up in Saillon, Switzerland.[4]
After his schooling, he trained as a carpenter and cabinetmaker, then studied at the Brienz School of Sculpture (Schule für Holzbildhauerei[de]).[3][5] After earning his degree, Raymond opened his own studio in Saillon in 1996. He has worked mainly with wood, but also stone, bronze and concrete.[6] At the beginning of his career, Raymond's sculptures were centred on the human being. Over time, his sculptures become more raw and massive.[2][7][8]
In 1991 he spent six months in the United States and in 1999 and 2000 he spent a year in China.[9][7]
In 2002, he was commissioned by the municipality of Saillon to create the sculpture, La Ronde. This work, composed of seven 200cm (79in) tall bronze figurative sculptures, pays homage to the diversity and openness of the residents of Saillon.[10][11]
Assemblée, marble, 158cm (62in), Saillon's School Centre, 2003
Raymond won first prize for the creation of a sculpture in marble for the Saillon's School Centre. Representing a group of children, this sculpture prefigures, through its very simple forms and raw material, the evolution of the artist's movement toward the abstract.[12]
Interfaces n.1, painted plywood, 61cm (24in), 2008Rouge n.1, from the Bout à bout series, painted wood, 280cm (110in), 2013
In 2004, he exhibited raw human figures in wood, as well as a series of concrete sculptures, at the Gallery Grande-Fontaine in Sion, Switzerland.[7] In 2005, while Raymond lived in Madrid, he decided to stop working on figurative art and to devote himself entirely to the abstract. He developed a new technique by constructing his sculptures with wood assemblies rather than subtractive sculpting.[2]
The Découpages series, an assembly of paper surfaces without any colour or glue, was created in 2007. These two-dimensional cuttings led to the creation of the Interfaces sculpture series from 2008 to 2010. These sculptures are made of construction plywood assembled and painted in monochrome.[13] The coherence of the works is found in the play of balance, imbalance and internal tensions. The sculptures are placed on the ground, on pedestals or inclined against walls.[13][14][15] They were exhibited during several personal exhibitions - notably at the Center des Art Léo-Ayotte in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada, in 2008; at the Art School Gallery in Ottawa, Canada, in 2009;[13] at the Center d'Exposition de Mont-Laurier, Quebec, Canada, in 2010; at the Maison des Arts et de la Culture in Brompton, Quebec, Canada, in 2011;[15][16] as well as at the Athens Art Gallery in Athens, Greece, in 2014 with a text by Swiss curator Benoît Antille.[14][17]
In 2013, the artist created the first sculpture from the series Bout à bout, with Rouge n.1. It was exhibited in the garden of the residence of the Swiss ambassador in Athens then at the Athens Art Gallery in 2014. This series is made of raw construction timber assembled end to end.[17][14] The artist exhibited again in 2017 at the Galerie Grande-Fontaine in Switzerland.[18] Built with fir and larch boards, common building materials in Switzerland, his sculptures become more massive and bare. The raw material and the assemblages can be seen, while parts of the sculpture are painted in bright colours.[19][20]
In 2019, his solo exhibition Éloge à la Main (Praise to the Hand) took place at the Athens Art Gallery in Greece, with a text by independent curator and art critic Maria Xypolopoulou for the catalogue. Alongside his sculptures, which tend more and more toward simplicity, he exhibits the continuation of the Bout à bout series with the sculptures Construction 1, 2 and 3 as well as twenty decoupages on paper forming a rectangle 220cm (87in) on a side.[14][21]
Raymond's works are described as abstract and refined, characterized by an economy of means, both in the materials used and colour.[1][13] His favourite materials are construction wood, plywood and paper, ordinary materials.[9] Through these constructions, tensions, energy and imbalances can be discerned in the coherence of the whole.[1][15] He attempts to materialize his interior life and quest.[1][7] The works are generally in series. Raymond is in the lineage of concrete art; with him the material is respected and is seen as it is, the visible assemblages are an integral part of the work.[14][9]
Personal exhibitions
2019: Praise to the Hand, Athens Art Gallery, text by Maria Xypolopoulou, Athens, Greece[21]
2017: Galerie Grande Fontaine, with Martine Rouiller, Sion, Switzerland[18][20]
2014: Athens Art Gallery, text by Benoît Antille, Athens, Greece[14][17]
2013: Residence of the Swiss Ambassador, Athens, Greece[3]
2011: Maison des Arts et de la Culture de Brompton, Quebec, Canada[15][16]
2010: Interfaces, Mont-Laurier Exhibition Center, Quebec, Canada[3]
Cordonier, Jacques; Olesen, Mads; Gartentor, Heinrich; Largey, Anne Jean-Richard; Ribordy, Véronique; Taramarcaz, Josette & Tissières, Floriane (2013). 40 Ans Visarte Valais Catalogue (in French). Martigny, Suisse: Art Ray Éditions, Martigny.
Lemonidou, Eve (2010). International Contemporary Artists. New York, New York: Lemonidou Eve. ISBN978-9609322980.
Related Research Articles
Valais, more formally, the Canton of Valais, is one of the 26 cantons forming the Swiss Confederation. It is composed of thirteen districts and its capital and largest city is Sion.
There are 122 municipalities in the canton of Valais, Switzerland.
Le Nouvelliste is a Swiss French-language daily newspaper, published in Sion, Valais, by the publishing company Éditions Le Nouvelliste SA.
Raymond Hains was a prominent French visual artist and a founder of the Nouveau réalisme movement. In 1960, he signed, along with Arman, François Dufrêne, Yves Klein, Jean Tinguely, Jacques Villeglé and Pierre Restany, the Manifesto of New Realism. In 1976, the first retrospective exhibition dedicated to Hains’ work was organized by Daniel Abadie at the National Center of Art and Culture (C.N.A.C.) in Paris. Hains named the show, which was the last one to be displayed at the C.N.A.C., La Chasse au C.N.A.C.. For it, Daniel Spoerri organized a dinner entitled La faim au C.N.A.C..
Mario Prassinos was a French modernist painter, printmaker, illustrator, stage designer, and writer of Greek-Italian descent.
Marc-Aurèle Fortin was a Québécois painter, known best for paintings that convey the charm of small-town Quebec.
Alekos Fassianos was a renowned Greek painter. He gained recognition for his distinctive style, which was characterized by immediacy and a deliberate departure from standardized painting techniques.
Maurice Chappaz was a French-language Swiss poet and writer. He published more than 40 books and won several literary awards, including his country's most notable award, the Grand Prix Schiller, in 1997.
The Neuchâtel Open was a professional golf tournament that was played annually between 1982 and 2007 at Neuchâtel Golf Club in Saint-Blaise, Neuchâtel, Switzerland. It was a 54-hole stroke play tournament.
The coat of arms of the Swiss canton of Valais is in red and white, divided vertically with thirteen five-pointed stars in opposite colours. The stars represent the thirteen districts. It was introduced in 1815, when the Valais was detached from the French Department of Simplon to join the join the Swiss Confederacy.
Joëlle Morosoli is a French-Canadian sculptor of French and Swiss descent. Her work takes the form either of installations or of architecturally integrated art in public buildings. Most of her works have moving parts, driven by mechanical systems.
Rusdi Genest was a Quebec sculptor known for his symbolic surrealistic art bronzes by the lost-wax casting process and his hand-pressed mural reliefs in fine art papermaking. He was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA) in 2013.
Adam Basanta is a Montreal-based artist and experimental composer whose practice investigates manifestations of technology as a meeting point of concurrent and overlapping systems. He uses various media and creates participatory and multi-sensory performances.
Louis-Pierre Bougie was a Canadian painter and printmaker specialized in engraving and etching. He developed his knowledge of intaglio techniques at Atelier Lacourière-Frélaut in Paris, where he worked for fifteen years, and through travel and study in France, Portugal, Poland, Ireland, Finland, and New York. His work is regularly shown in Canadian, American, and European galleries, and is represented in major public and private collections, notably in Québec and New York. Bougie was considered Québec's foremost engraver for the depth and consistency of his work. He died from pneumonia.
Monique "Mo" Harvey (1950–2001) was a Canadian painter who lived and worked in Montreal, Quebec.
RegionAlps is a railway company in Switzerland providing S-Bahn services in the canton of Valais. It is a joint venture between Swiss Federal Railways, Transports de Martigny et Régions (TMR), and the canton of Valais. It runs passenger trains on the Saint-Gingolph–Saint-Maurice and Simplon lines, between Saint-Gingolph on Lake Geneva and Brig, and on the Martigny–Orsières line.
The Mémorial Olivier Barras is a professional golf tournament that is held annually at Crans-sur-Sierre Golf Club in Crans-Montana, Valais, Switzerland. It was founded in 1965 in memory of Olivier Barras, a nine-time Swiss champion golfer who died in a car crash in June 1964, at Monza racing on the track.
The Tonkin Railway, or South Lake Geneva railway, is a partly disused line connecting the Swiss cities of Saint-Maurice and Geneva via the French communes of Évian-les-Bains, Thonon-les-Bains and Annemasse, crossing the France–Switzerland border twice.
HC Valais-Chablais is a Swiss professional ice hockey team who play in Martigny in the canton of Valais. They have played in the Swiss League (SL) since the 2023–24 season, the second tier of the main professional ice hockey leagues in Switzerland, behind the National League.
Forum d'Octodure is an arena in Martigny, Switzerland. It is primarily used for ice hockey and is the home arena of HCV Martigny. Forum d'Octodure was opened in 1955, in 1982 a roof was built and the rink became covered.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
