Combas spent his childhood and adolescence in Sète (Hérault), in a family of communistes1 convictions. He comes from a family of 6 children, he is the son of a worker father and a mother cleaning agent. He quit school at age 17. From 1975 to 1979 he studied for five years at the School of Fine Arts Montpellier2 having studied at the Fine Arts Sète for a year with Éliane Beaupuy-Manciet.
Upon entry to the Fine Arts, Combas brings an innovative aesthetic. While conceptual art dominated French artistic production, he takes the floor against the mainstream and attempts to redefine the use of space, color and figuration. On the principle that "everything has, anyway, been done," Combas appropriates the great clichés of art, and opens new possibilities in the way of a return to figuration.
By 1977, Combas painted the series of "Battles" complete subject and still valid, then continues, among others, with its appropriation of the figure of Mickey Mouse. He then created the "Pop Art Arabe." This expression refers to his invention works to air commercials "underdeveloped countries", marked Arab false writings. His aesthetic is pretty rough time and influenced by all that is in its early adult life: television, rock, comic, sex ...
Combas spends his degree in fine arts in 1979 in Saint-Etienne. Ceysson Bernard is a member of the jury, he offers to participate the following year, at the exhibition "After the classicism" in moderne3 art museum.
Robert Combas and Hervé Di Rosa are from Sète. In this city, they create in 1979 in the company of Catherine Brindel (Kitty), the journal Bato, "work of art assemblagiste and collective."
Meanwhile, Kitty and Combas form, with Buddy (the brother of Hervé Di Rosa), a rock band, The Démodés, who knows a critical success in the south of France.
Combas while studying fine arts of Montpellier (where teach Dominique Gauthier and Daniel Dezeuze) Di Rosa enrolled at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris. There he met Francois Boisrond. Through the latter's father, they met the art critic Bernard Lamarche-Vadel offering them to participate in an exhibition at the apartment he must leave; it's "Finish in style" in 1981. At that time, Lamarche-Vadel their present Remi Blanchard, he had as a student at the School of Fine Arts in Quimper. This exhibition, which also includes Jean-Charles Blais, Jean-Michel Alberola, Denis Laget and Catherine Viollet, is the real starting point of the free figuration.
The term "free representation" is found, during the summer of 1981 by Ben artist who invited Combas and Di Rosa to exhibit in his gallery Nice ( "2 Sétois Nice"). This movement brings together four "legitimate" artist, Rémi Blanchard, François Boisrond, Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, and lonely, Ludovic Marchand.L'exposition "5/5, Figuration France / USA" organized in 1984 by the Museum modern Art of the City of Paris officially dedicated this movement by confronting the generation of "graffiti artists" new York (Jean-Michel Basquiat, Crash, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf). We can measure this occasion that brings but also what distinguishes the American painters of the French. In the exhibition catalog, Otto Hahn4 attempts to define the affinities of two groups:
"My interest for Americans, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Crash, Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf, and for the French Rémi Blanchard, François Boisrond, Combas, Hervé Di Rosa, plus photographers Louis Jammes and Tseng Kwong Chi, here grouped under the acronym of free representation, just the joyful vitality that emerges from their work. While painting is full of noble attitudes and feelings tragic, the "puerilism" posted newcomers gives the feeling of liberation. "
In June 1987, he met Genevieve at the age of 30, he compared it directly to his muse. With it, he rediscovers love and makes his reunion with paint dripping into a new style with the use of acrylic. It adopted this colorful style after an incident.
The spirit of free representation [change | modify the code]
This new generation of painters is animated by enthusiasm and nonchalance that contrasts with the severity of the 1970 (minimal and conceptual art, Arte Povera, Supports / Surfaces, etc.). However, unlike the Italian Transavangardia and German neo-expressionists, these painters will no refuge in nostalgia. They fit without shame or guilt in the news of their time, with a colorful style, graphics and simplified inspired comics, science fiction, children's drawings and suburban culture.
Artists from the free representation, however, remain less influenced by graffiti than Americans. Their painting refers more to the "popular arts" monsters and robots to Di Rosa; Art Brut and Arab and African imagery to Combas; storytelling, circus Blanchard; advertising and industrial objects for Boisrond.
