During the post-Renaissance years, European gentlemen would embark on The Grand Tour. They would travel to Italy and Greece to immerse themselves in the cultural legacy of classical antiquity: philosophy, architecture and most of all, art.
When French painter Éric Roux-Fontaine was a young man, he decided to undertake his own Grand Tour. But he went in the opposite direction. Rather than pursue sophistication, he sought out untamed nature and the people who in harmony with it.
He says: "To tell a story, whether you are a writer, a filmmaker or a painter, you first have to live. So I did my own Grand Tour in my own way by travelling throughout Eastern Europe, meeting native communities in Central America, and visiting the jungles of Northern India. I needed to confront my painting with the world before I could transcribe that experience onto canvas."
The experience was profound. These journeys provided the foundation for Eric's unique artistic vision – a world view that continues to entrance audiences many decades later. In Eric's dreamlike works, he explores the idea of civilisation slowly reclaimed by nature. He paints rich verdant forests that contain jarring emblems of the modern human world: a suspension bridge; a tightrope walker; a chandelier. He describes his style as a combination of contemporary and magic realism.
Eric's singular style has made him one of France's most popular and recognisable contemporary painters. He was born in 1966 in the Savoy region of France and attended the fine art school at Saint-Etienne aged 17. After completing his 'Grand Tour' he hosted his first solo exhibition in 1991. By 1995, he had paintings in the permanent collections of the Musée des Beaux-arts in Chambéry and the Musée Paul Dini in Villefranche-sur-Saône.
Later, he achieved success in the US with solo shows at Boston’s M Fine Arts gallery, Waltman Ortega Fine Art in Miami, the Hugo Galerie in New York and more. In 2008, the Spanish private arts foundation Josep Niebla presented Eric's first retrospective. In 2023, The Catto arranged Eric's first UK exhibition.
Now, we are delighted to host this follow-up show. The work is hypnotic. In one painting a dark jungle landscape features a hovering silver moon. In another - The Mysterious Hotel – three reindeer mooch around the fading splendour of a ballroom being slowly devoured by trees and flowers.
There's a strong cinematic quality to these images. So it's no surprise to learn that Eric is strongly influenced by the visionary film making of directors such as Serbian Emir Kusturica, German Wim Wenders and American Jim Jarmusch. Like them, Eric feels compelled to follow his muse. He says: "If we were totally satisfied and convinced by the world around us, I don't think we would need to produce music, write books, or make films."
