A Journey to the Heart of Abstraction with Olivier Debré
We’ll start our peregrinations in Touraine, Olivier Debré’s heartland, before heading off to Thailand in the company of Somsak Hanumas, whose painting from 2024 will mesmerize you.
Estimate: €60,000/70,000
While Olivier Debré has traveled to many countries, painting in the USA, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Norway, he has always returned to the Touraine. This is the region in France where he spent his childhood vacations, and where, in 1978, he inherited a house in Vernou-sur-Brenne. Here, he recharged his batteries and continued his experiments. This oil on canvas, painted in 1982-1983, is a case in point. The large-format painting — classic for Debré — is entitled Blanche rose, a color that evokes the ochre colored earth found on the banks of the Loire and covers almost the entire surface, marked only in places by a thicker, more colorful material: spatial reference points, but also sensitive symbols of the ravages of time on this landscape. For Olivier Debré is indeed a landscape artist. At the end of the war, he turned away from figuration under the influence of Hans Hartung and members of the French lyrical abstraction movement, but his aim was to transcribe his emotions in the face of nature. Emotions shared by Somsak Hanumas, who draws his inspiration from the landscapes of his homeland, Thailand. €15,000/20,000 will be necessary to acquire an acrylic and lacquer work created by the painter in 2024, with the enticing title You Need Me. The format is exactly the same as that of Debré’s composition (150 x 150 cm/59.05 x59.05 in) for this work that testifies to the artist’s ascendancy on the market at the moment. “Where forms stop, colors begin; where the eye stops, art begins”, he declares. Born in Bangkok in 1980, he began his career as an engineer before turning to painting as a self-taught artist. He developed his own technique, which consists of painting the background of the canvas, then adding a multitude of colored dots applied in a gradation. Then, using a brush, he traces lines — in this case, wavy lines — on top. Working with accumulated matter is at the heart of his work, which is also a dialogue with the viewer.
Sunday 20 April 2025 – 14:00 (CEST) – Live
7, rue Saint-Nicol – 14600 Honfleur
Mytika Honfleur
