Biography

Born in 1953, Stéphane Bordarier lives and works in Nîmes. Since the early 1980s, he has been exploring the ways in which color can occupy and shape a surface. Drawing inspiration from the avant-gardes of the 1960s and 1970s, from postwar American abstraction, from the tradition of the Italian fresco, and from the essential figures of Matisse and the great European painters, Bordarier has developed an original approach that stands out within the contemporary art landscape. His work is grounded in a principle of economy and precision, engaging a dynamic…

Born in 1953, Stéphane Bordarier lives and works in Nîmes.
Since the early 1980s, he has been exploring the ways in which color can occupy and shape a surface. Drawing inspiration from the avant-gardes of the 1960s and 1970s, from postwar American abstraction, from the tradition of the Italian fresco, and from the essential figures of Matisse and the great European painters, Bordarier has developed an original approach that stands out within the contemporary art landscape. His work is grounded in a principle of economy and precision, engaging a dynamic tension between constraint and freedom.
The painter follows a precise protocol: on a canvas stretched and coated with animal-skin glue, he applies color during the brief period in which the glue is setting. The painting ends when the glue sets; this moment determines the conclusion of the pictorial act and effectively “pushes” the painter away from the surface. Color and form therefore crystallize in a time span that escapes the artist’s will. “I make the color directly on the canvas,” he explains.
Bordarier reduces painting to its essential elements—form and color—while fully exploiting the variations made possible by this economy of means. Color becomes material, light, and space all at once. Depending on the situation, it may appear dense or translucent, massive or fluid, always inhabited by the chromatic memory the artist has patiently built over the years.
Among his explorations, Bordarier has worked in depth with two colors he prepares himself: Mars Violet, which he has used since 1996, and copper sulfate, more diaphanous and of more recent appearance. Between these two poles—one familiar, the other still to be explored—he has proceeded almost in a state of balance, faithful to what he once described as a pendulum movement. Establishing rules in order to transcend them, he cultivates the surprise of new tones and mixtures while maintaining the framework of constraints he has set for himself.
The square format, often favored, contributes to this freedom: the painter works while moving around a canvas laid horizontally, abolishing any fixed orientation and any search for traditional composition. Each painting emerges from the expansion of a color across most of the surface, with the unpainted reserves cutting into the chromatic field and determining its contours. Depending on the work, the form may appear torn and jagged, or, on the contrary, assert itself as a full figure that grazes the edges of the stretcher and often spills over onto its sides. By refusing any subject matter or expressive gesture, Bordarier affirms a body of work in which painting is entirely self-sufficient, proclaiming the power of color.
Many exhibitions have been dedicated to his work in various museums: the Musée d’Art Moderne in Céret in 1986, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Mulhouse in 1995, the Carré d’Art – Musée d’Art Contemporain in Nîmes in 1997, the Musée Réattu in Arles in 2000, the Regional Museum of Contemporary Art of Languedoc-Roussillon in Sérignan in 2003, the Hôtel des Arts in Toulon in 2007, the Musée Fabre in Montpellier in 2010 and again in 2021, and MAMCO in Geneva in 2015. His work has been exhibited in numerous institutions and galleries in Germany, Belgium, Italy, the United States, and Korea.

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