Jean-Pierre Rives - Art

Art

– Jean-Pierre Rives.

Jean-Pierre Rives turned to art full-time after his retirement from rugby in 1984. Art had been his passion since early boyhood, and he immersed himself in it with dedication that soon earned him critical acclaim. Rives' chosen media became painting and sculpture, which he took up when he was still a rugby player, after meeting a well-known French sculptor and Prix de Rome winner, Albert Feraud. The two men found a commonality of aesthetics, and Rives moved to a house not far away from Feraud's home in Bagneux. Many of Rives' earlier sculptures were created in Feraud's atelier, where both artists worked side by side. "He invited me to his studio, and I never got out," Rives told Hugh Schofield of the BBC. Rives considers Albert Feraud a great man and an inspiration. Another artist that inspired Rives' work is a Polish-born French painter Ladislas Kijno.

The bond between art and sport feels natural to Rives, as he believes that art and rugby can interconnected, and emotions are found in both. "In sports you make movement and you are maybe sculpting or painting in the space with your body," he told Clara Iaccarino of the Sydney Morning Herald. "In art you use instruments. Art is just energy, you have to do it; it has to come out." He works in a disused railway shed in the north of Paris, where he forms and twists his found steel, manipulating the shapes created by the resulting positive and negative spaces. He cuts the beams strategically to form complex compositions in which the hardness of the steel forms a powerful juxtaposition to the soft curves. Rives' sculptures were called by the French La Dépêche du Midi "a marvelous mixture of suffering, grace and beauty."

Rives sees his paintings as the two-dimensional reflections of his sculptures. He uses the word "impression" to describe both the technique and the philosophy applied to his canvases. The impression is made by a mark or an indentation created by pressure, as if his sculptures were dipped in tar and paint and then pressed onto the surface of a canvas. This term "impression" also alludes to the effect the paintings produce on the viewer, and the feelings they evoke.

Jean-Pierre Rives’ sculptures have been showcased at public venues around the world including the prestigious Jardin du Luxembourg in Paris, a stone's throw from the classical Senate building, in 2002. This installation marked the first time sculptures were exhibited there since Auguste Rodin's exhibition more than a century ago. A widely attended and written about vernissage attracted many of France's powerful political and business leaders and, according to the influential Le Point, included "a pack of Rives' elite" – friends and collectors all – Serge Kampf, founder of Cap Gemini, Claude Bébéar, founder of AXA, Henri Lachmann, CEO of Schneider Electric, Jean-René Fourtou, Chairman of Vivendi, Pierre Dauzier, President of Havas and Thierry Breton Chairman of France Télécom and future Finance Minister. Other large scale shows included the annual Sculpture By The Sea exhibition in Sydney, Australia, in 2007, an exhibition in the historically important Royal Park in Brussels, Belgium, in 2009, an exhibition in the 18th century sculpture garden Le Grand Rond in Toulouse, France, in 2010 and an installation on the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan, New York, in 2010, to name a few.

Jean-Pierre Rives' work is found in numerous private and public collections throughout the globe, including Musée du quai Branly in Paris, Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, also in Paris, and Asago Art Village Museum and Sculpture Garden in Asago, Japan, among many others. He is represented in the U.S. by the Serge Sorokko Gallery.