Christophe AURIAC
| mixed | media | artist |
 
Born in Toulouse (France) in 1964
Spends his time : 33% in Strasbourg, 33% in Paris and 33% everywhere else...
 
Christophe Auriac, the artist, began as a guitar and bass player in several punk and rock bands in the 80’s. This means : hundreds of concerts, TV and radio shows, records…

In 1992 he discovered that painting could be a means of expression that went beyond words. It was the talented artist Geneviève Schlick, who had brought him to this realization before her unexpected death at the age of 26.

Up until 2007 he had used his pseudonym “cairo”, Auriac backwards, to sign over 1000 paintings, drawings and engravings.

During this period, his work was exhibited regularly in European galleries art centers and shown at various art fairs (Art Paris, St’art, Burmingham Fair, Amsterdam and Rotterdam Art Fairs, …), where a performance often accompanied the creation of a work. The Museum of Modern Art of Strasbourg and the Museums of Belfort have acquired some of his creations.

Christophe’s works, always in progress, are organized as research series and have included such themes as: the strength of symbols in esoterism, “el mundillo” (the little world of the “corrida” and its traditions), family secrets and their relations to the body, sexual ambiguity and anatomy…

In 2007, Christophe spent 3 months as an artist in residence in Brno, Czech Republic, working on his art project entitled “originis pondus”. Its theme is simple : each individual carries within him the weight of his origins. He found that this heritage has 3 main sources which are : genetic, cultural and from the family. The problematic that arises from this asks, what then, is the real part of freedom left by our heritage.

Assisted by the Canadian multimedia artist Stéphanie Brodeur, Christophe conceived a dozen works (photos, videos, installations and drawings) around 4 main themes : the weight of others, genetics, family secrets and collective history. As of 2008, this body of work will be exhibited in several European art centers with the support of the cities of Brno (CZ) and Strasbourg (F) and with assistance from the C.E.A.A.C. (Centre Européen d’Actions Artistiques Contemporaines).