Stéphane Bordarier

Since the mid-1980s, Stéphane Bordarier (born in 1953) has developed a body of work that is part of the historical movement in which painting becomes its own subject. Unique in the contemporary art landscape, his practice, attentive to what he calls “surface quality,” is based on a balance between imposed constraints and freedom of gesture.

Progressively reducing his pictorial language to its essence — a colour, a form — Stéphane Bordarier explores the potentialities of a painting that is both rigorous and profoundly sensitive.

His works are born from an immutable process: on a canvas stretched on a frame and coated with warm hide glue, he applies the pigment during the glue's setting time.

The artist then describes himself as being “chased” from the canvas by the material as it sets, determining the completion of the painting: colour and form align in a resolution unique to each work.

Generally reduced to a single tonality, the canvas surface acquires, through the impregnation of pigment mixed with glue, a matte appearance and a particular intensity. The painting is thus constructed in a close relationship with time.

In the Noires series, the colour, resulting from a mixture of two tones directly on the canvas, never appears as a fixed or absolute value but reveals a subtle chromatic depth.

These works, traversed by changing nuances, sensitive to light and the movement of the gaze, allow their creation process to be perceived. For nearly thirty years, the Galerie Jean Fournier in Paris accompanied and presented Stéphane Bordarier's work.

He is now represented by the Galerie Dina Vierny. Thanks to a recent acquisition complemented by a donation from the artist, five works by Stéphane Bordarier entered the museum's collections in 2026.

They are presented here alongside several loans from the studio, offering a significant overview of his career and pictorial research.