Biographical Data
Born in Le Fay, Saône et Loire, France, in 1949. He lives and works in Pré Saint-Gervais and in Château-Chalon. Bernard Moninot studies Fine Arts at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (1967-1968). His first individual exhibition takes place in 1971. He teaches at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Brief Chronology
Since the very beginning, Bernard Moninot’s work is centered in drawing; but, as the writer Jean-Christophe Bailly puts it, his work is “an enlarged drawing, that expands through spatial objects, on or via materials of trace and inscription”. Bernard Moninot first combines wood, glass and mirrors with paint and Indian ink in assemblages or drawings on paper (Vitrines series, Entrelacs series, Chambres noires series). In the 80’s his work is more experimental and poetic and he uses natural phenomenons: light, wind, shadows, sound waves (la, la, la, 1994-2005), resonances (Le fil d’Alerte, 2007). He adjusts devices to trace lines used by carpenters and builders “to determine levels or building layouts”. He transfers shadow or sun stains (Lodi, 1992) and, using light, projects them on the wall (Studiolo, Table et instruments, 2000-2002). He hammers “instantaneous drawings” (Constellations), the colored dust falls “unto the surface of glass previously prepared”. He captures
La mémoire du vent (The memory of the wind) in his landscapes with a small device that traces in the blackness of smoke and projects pictures on the wall. In 2005 he begins working in a collection of large Dessins sur soie (drawings on silk), using graphite and silk thread to represent “the time we take in perceiving a piece of work, the effect of iridescence”.
P.L.T.
la, la, la, 1994-2005, Silk screen print on glass and crystal diapason, 45 x 134,5 x 9,5 cm / 17,7 x 52,7 x 3,7 in.