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Issu d'une tradition familiale d'origine italienne de sculpteurs sur pierre, Vincent Du Bois s'oriente d'abord vers une formation artistique traditionnelle et académique. Après ses études, il décide de poursuivre sa formation à l'étranger. D'abord en Italie, à Pietra Santa (Toscane), où il peut assouvir sa passion pour le marbre et aiguiser ses aptitudes figuratives. Ensuite aux Etats-Unis où pendant plusieurs années, il s'écartera volontairement de la pierre pour s'adonner à une totale remise en question de ses croyances artistiques, se plongeant corps et âme dans les travaux les plus expérimentaux et conceptuels. Après obtention de son Master, il quitte Chicago, pour s'installer un nouvel atelier à Genève où il partage désormais ses journées entre la restauration du patrimoine sculpté et sa création. Passionné de figure comme de travaux conceptuels, Vincent Du Bois a toujours travaillé simultanément sur ces deux pôles, peuplant son atelier d'autant de portraits de ses contemporains que d'installations aux atours expérimentaux. Il a résolument choisi de pousser chacun de ces domaines séparément avec une constance sans faille, incapable de lâcher l'un pour l'autre. Son travail est basé sur l'alternance. Une sorte de respiration où se relaie la confrontation physique à la matière et le plaisir de la réflexion. Un dialogue entre les sens et l'esprit. (Adpat. 01 du DM catalogue)

Coming from an Italian family with a long tradition of marble carving, Vincent Du Bois was early taught the art of sculpture in a very traditional and academical way. After finishing school in Geneva, he took up studies at Artigiani in Pietra Santa (Toscane) in Italy, where he could sharpen his perception for the human figure and live his passion for marble. After one year of constant contact with the white Carrara marble, he chose to break free from this stone tradition for some time in order to question his artistic values. He then moves to the United States, where he joined the Master program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. For over two years he dedicated himself to all kinds of experimental and conceptual work. By opening his mind to all sorts of material he both enriched his art and has given it more freedom. After obtaining his MFA, he set up his new studio back in Geneva, where he now divides his days between restauration of the cultural heritage of his hometown and elsewhere, and the creation of his art. With his passion for figurative as well as conceptional art, Vincent Du Bois has never been able to chose between these two ways of perceiving art. On the contrary he claims the need to advance in both and explore them separately and alternatively. This is what characterizes this contemporary artist and filled his studio with both portraits and conceptual installations. Be it classic or contemporary what counts is this sense of balance where one can breath the physical interaction of materials all together with the pleasure of reflection: a dialog between the senses and the spirit. (Statement of the DM catalog, '01 adaptation.)

How did civilisation and nature become two different entities? Can they organize their future in separate ways ? Can they survive without each other ? The reflection that inspires my late works is the retrieval of a sense of unity between these two actors. Two aspects occupy this reflection. One is a political commitment based on the belief that the respect of the environment is the challenge of the new millennium. Man has the responsibility to recreate that lost harmony, he is the key link between nature and urbanity as child of the first and creator of the second. The other aspect is the formal quest that lies in the heart of sculpture. A quest to express, with raw material, some of the mystery and the poetry of life. The rule that applies in the conception of these works is always to combine one urban with one natural element. An urban material imitates a form or a process inspired by nature. A natural substance is forced into an urban composition. The result can either be absurd, kitsch or poetic. It doesn't matter, as long as the clash between the actors has delivered one solitary piece. Vincent Du Bois