Michel Natier, former director of the museum, reconnects with his artistic loves

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Michel Natier was the director of the Louviers museum (Eure) from the early 2000s until 2020. This resident of Herqueville is now retired, since he was replaced by Cédric Pannevel. Now that he has time, he devotes himself to his passions, painting and sculpture, being an artist himself. “I’m coming back to my first love,” he jokes.

Since this Thursday, October 24, 2024, and until December 15, 2024, he is in the spotlight of a painting exhibition at the estate of Dony d’Ornacieux-Balbins (Isère).

It’s a little far away for readers of La Dépêche de Louviers, but it nevertheless marks the return by Michel Natier on the in front of the artistic scene. “It’s my first exhibition in a long timeI would say before the 2000s. During my career, I focused on the museum and I muted my passions. There, I was invited to Isère for this exhibition and I accepted,” he confides.

“Inspired by nature” exhibition

Exhibiting his works (paintings and sculptures) in the surroundings of Louviers is something that Michel Natier would like “very much”. He states: “This first exhibition far from home is an opportunity to put myself back in the race. But if the opportunity arises to exhibit around Louviers, it would be with pleasure. »

The exhibition in Ornacieux-Balbins is “very inspired by nature”, as the artist explains, he who lives “surrounded by trees”. An ideal setting to inspire him: “I divide my time between my painting studio and my sculpture workshop. I like it a lot. »

Of his works, the historian and art critic Philippe Piguet explains: “Whether he sculpts or paints, Michel Natier’s art is required by an irrepressible relationship with nature. This animates it, in the strongest sense of the word, and governs its practice. In painting, he strives to express its intimate energy, sometimes through the exclusive means of color, playing on the abstract mode of the intensity of tones and values, sometimes in a more figurative mode by revealing the internal structure of foliage as if he were taking an indiscreet x-ray of them. Here and there, the living prevails over the artifact. »

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