CHRISTIAN SORG

Christian Sorg was among the painters who, at the turn of the 1980s, embodied the revival of abstraction in France. At a time when the artistic scene was dominated by representatives of the Supports/Surfaces group, who based their practice on the deconstruction of the painting and advocated for an art oriented toward neutrality and the exploration of materiality alone, Sorg introduced a different approach. He made brushwork and gesture the primary elements of his work. The energy, the exploration of material, and the expression of color in his works of that era paved a new path forward.

For Christian Sorg, painting is not merely a discourse on art; it is the creation of a language that, through plastic means, reaffirms the connection between art and life. He has developed this language by adopting a renewed approach to pictorial space: “The true subject is the painting itself,” he asserts. “It’s a process where imagination plays with its sequences and associations. The painting is made of color and form through the investment and interpretation of a space”—a space defined by painting itself.

His canvases are large-format works animated by sweeping movements of color, radiating a joyous and intense plenitude that highlights his talent as a colorist. In the early 1980s, his vibrant, interwoven colors could evoke a dreamlike allusion to the lushness of the ancient city of Palmyra. Today, they often suggest the Mediterranean landscapes of Calaceite, Spain, where Sorg has spent significant time over the past three decades. His long walks in the still-wild nature of this region deeply inform his painting. The "Los Prados" series (2022–2023) is a new expression of this influence. These fields of blue, white, green, pink, and yellow tones convey the power of light and vegetation, offering the artist an infinite repertoire of forms, tonalities, and sensations.

Whether starting from the observation of a landscape, an object, or a more imaginary suggestion, Christian Sorg gives color the leading role. It is the structuring element of his paintings, defined by its irreducible power and subjective effects. The Impressionists were the first to liberate color.

However, Christian Sorg's painting is not just an accumulation of broad strokes of color spread across the canvas; it is a space traversed by lines, strokes, and traces—signs that compose a writing reminiscent of the earliest human inscriptions when writing was a drawing, a representation, before becoming a system of communication. The frescoes and markings of prehistoric caves such as Lascaux, Chauvet, Arcy-sur-Cure, or sites in the Levant of Spain are essential references for Sorg and underpin his current practice.

The new forms of signs he inscribes in the color are the building blocks of a language that allows him to describe the world and share its emotional resonance with us. His gestures, repeated hundreds of times before being committed to the canvas, achieve a perfect balance between control and spontaneity. This spontaneity is the means of accessing the essence of things, revealing a presence that Sorg invites us to trace at the heart of this new world that is painting.

ABOUT CHRISTIAN SORG: 

Christian Sorg, born in Paris in 1941, is a French painter who lives and works in France. His artistic journey began at the École des Arts Appliqués, where he chose to study sculpture. He continued his studies at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he developed his connection to painting. Over the years, Sorg has created a unique pictorial language, inventing his own method of interpreting and appropriating reality.

His works are part of numerous prestigious collections, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne, the Musée National d’Art Moderne at the Centre Georges Pompidou, Les Abattoirs in Toulouse, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nantes and Rouen, the Musée-Galerie Carnot in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, the Musée de Sens, the Musée de Soissons, and the Musée de la Vallée de la Creuse in Éguzon-Chantôme. Additionally, his works can be found in the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BNF), as well as in libraries and art lending institutions in Avallon, Bayeux, and Riom, and in the corporate collections of BNP and Worms banks.

Internationally, his works are held at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva (Switzerland), the Institut Français in Barcelona, the Museo de Calaceite (Teruel), the Museo del Dibujo (Huesca), the Museo Provincial de Teruel, the Museo Goya (Zaragoza), and the Museo Pablo Serrano (Zaragoza). His work is also included in the collections of the Zervos, Colas, and Noésis foundations (Spain), the MATMUT Foundation, and the Fondation Bouvet-Ladubay in Saumur. Regional and national public collections, such as the FRAC (Alsace, Haute-Normandie, Midi-Pyrénées) and FNAC in Paris, also house his art.