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EnglishDRYPOINT ENGRAVINGS BY ROGER DESCOMBES AT “LA GRAVURE” Beyond mundane superficiality
Article on the engravings exhibition held at Madame Nane Cailler's "La Gravure" gallery in Pully near Lausanne, on the 10th June to the 10th July 1971.
The Gallery of the Avenue des Deux Ponts in Pully has exhibited fifty or so dry-point engravings by Roger Descombes: an artist today based in Geneva and who was a fashion illustrator for “Vogue” in Paris and London, as well as occasional designer of publicity adds -such as that in Monte-Carlo where he is said to have headed a publicity campaign for the famous Onassis himself.
From this past activity, he has without a doubt retained all of his ability in terms of precision and purity of line but in the “oeuvres libres” he goes way beyond any mundane superficiality in order to free-fall into the most adventurous exploration and analysis of the unconscious. He is transformed, as it where, into a “Surrealist” making use of the process of “automatism” and employing drawing in order to express the true psychic function of thoughts.
While engraving or working the copper plate, he goes way beyond what can be seen or that which the mirror actually reflects. Anything unforeseen is defined by what has been internalised by him during the course of previous everyday life observation.
Everything is rendered sensitively significant. No separation any longer existent between the mineral, vegetable and human realms but everything holding its own yet merged as one.
By means of the human form, Descombes journeys from innocence to experience, from physical beauty to spiritual fulfilment and the usual clear division between the material world and that of the spirit ends up as being quite eroded.
There is a certain kind of pantheism about this artist from a Calvinistic background and a sort of intellectual eroticism which are the principle characteristic features of his engraved works.
Translation by Louise Descombes July 2010
G. Patanè, Feuille d’Avis de Lausanne
