A graphic designer by training, Chris Calvet from North Aveyron fell in love with Chinese calligraphy. A country he was in until recently and an art that he now practices in large format, during spectacular performances.
Between Chris Calvet and China, it’s a great love story. A country where he has just spent a month as part of the sixtieth anniversary of the cultural exchange that links France to China, and which he discovered when he worked in the luxury industry, at Dupuis associés. “I took care of all the graphic part for the perfume boxes, from design to production, and production monitoring. And I often went to China.” The Aveyronnais was then “interpellated by the ideograms”, these symbols used in writing, in Asia. “I really liked the work of the drawn letter, the typography.”
It must be said that Chris Calvet has always been passionate about graphic arts.
He grew up in Saint-Amans-des-Côts
Born in 1979 in Rodez, he grew up in Saint-Amans-des-Côts, this North Aveyron that he cherishes so much and where he returns as often as he can.
After high school, he went to Aurillac to take a CAP at the Saint-Géraud communication high school. “In the summer, I worked at LisethCréation, in Saint-Gervais.” And it was in Paris that he took his baccalaureate and his BTS in visual communication, specializing in graphic arts and moving towards packaging and luxury boxes.
“Alongside my work, I was doing oil painting and free Arabic calligraphy. And when I met the Iraqi calligrapher Hassan Massoudy, who was exhibiting in my neighborhood in Paris, we talked and it resonated even more.”
The Aveyronnais is so passionate that he takes calligraphy lessons with Alessandra Lanève. “She was very open to many things, which allowed me to go in other directions.” In particular, the large formats that will then give rise to spectacular performances, in front of an audience often intrigued by this ballet of the brush on the paper.
“At the beginning, the performances were to show that it wasn’t photomontage,” explains the Aveyronnais. “Now, I do it regularly. It gives another dimension.”
Spectacular also the “mixture of body and calligraphy” created by the artist. Works full of sensuality, where the drawings of the ideograms follow the curves of the female models, presented as part of the exhibition Signe, from 2015 in China. Where he returned in the following years before a halt due to a motorcycle accident, and the Covid pandemic.
Before a return, therefore, recently, as artistic ambassador.
XXL performance on the Montézic dam
In September 2021, Chris Calvet took over the dike of the Montézic pond, his family village, for an extraordinary performance. The opportunity for him to present six years of creations, “four hundred meters of original works”, remembers the artist who has also exhibited in New York, Miami, Rome, Istanbul, Paris, and of course in China, the centuries-old cradle of calligraphy.
Between Paris and China
“They contacted me again for the sixtieth anniversary of the cultural exchange, last December, which allowed me to spend a month there, in Chengdu, in the Sichuan province,” says Chris Calvet, who returned at the beginning of June. “It went by very quickly!” he says. “I lived a month outside of time, permanently in creation. I would have even needed another month!”
Between Paris, where he lives, and China, Chris Calvet does not forget his native Aveyron. “I need to recharge my batteries in Aubrac, to return to my mother’s family home in Montézic,” confides the artist. Water, earth… Calligraphy is linked to nature, to the elements. And Aveyron is linked to calligraphy.”
To find the world of Chris Calvet: chris-calvet.com Also on Facebook, on Instagram and on singulart.com
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