From earth to glass
Farmer for over 40 years in the Drôme,
As a verrien agrisculteur for 30 years, I’ve always been sensitive to beauty, art, light, the fragility of life and its strength, and poetry.
As a farmer, I’m aware of the power of germination, of the force of time passing, and I feel the need to write, to bring together and transform in order to raise our sights higher.
Like the stained-glass windows I create, I situate myself between two, inside and outside, earth and sky.
If I work with glass, it’s because it resonates so much with human qualities. For me, sculpture is the materialization of feelings. It allows me to express my intimacy.
In cutting glass with diamonds and assembling it with iron, wood and stone, light emerges from the breakage, from the shine and unites the colors. I associate glass with tools, often agricultural, or with ancient materials to express my feeling that man must draw on his roots to move forward. Assembling, gathering tools, forgotten or discarded thoughts and, in a moment of sincerity, sculpting, giving them new life and saying that it’s never finished. From heart to hand, be the leaven to offer the bread, and awaken us to the notion of eternity.
In 1991, my first exhibition expressed the suffering and beauty of the farming world, its harmony and sensitivity with nature, but also its remoteness. It was called “De Terrien à Verrien”. Now I realize that this is where my story lies, trying to make humanity feel the sacredness of its existence.
For me, art means being able to say, see, touch, feel and taste Life. To offer a space of peace and freedom. The artist doesn’t do to do, but to say.
Listen to a bird sing, it sings peace. Watching a farmer sow, he pushes towards freedom.
Sow a field of wheat to feed mankind,
Sculpting to continually Love.
Bernard Froment
Bernard Froment
A margin of indefiniteness
Bernard Froment is certainly off the beaten track. To salute his work, we’ll follow in the footsteps of the poet Werner Lambersy: “… I put my hands / In the earth, the dust, / And the clay, / Whose gloves fit me / To measure/ My skin / Against these skins/ Carved in a piece/ Bigger/ And softer/ The palm of the/ World / I sank my fingers into / The flesh where to plant my feet… “.
The beaten track? You’d have to take them, not stay on the surface of things, like water sliding over a duck’s feathers.
In truth, Bernard Froment’s sculpture is all arms and wings, in a strange, fusional ballet that reminds us, with glass, of the sand that the wind gave birth to. From a breathless lock, he offers us a map of improbable universes. His work subtly combines abstraction and realism. Close to everyday reality, he transports us into an unreal world of twirling, spinning, impalpable creatures. A skin-deep Tower of Babel. Bernard Froment suggests a margin of indefiniteness. With rare conciseness and intensity, he unfurls shudders. Simple and complicated, he invites us to inhabit the world poetically, in the image of Hölderlin… Man dwells on earth, and exchange and discussion are perceived as oral sculpture… This is what Nietzsche so magnificently highlighted: “Man is no longer an artist, he has become a work of art […], here we knead the noblest clay, we sculpt the most precious marble: man himself”.
Gilbert Auzias – FOL Ardèche – Thursday, January 29, 2014
Exhibitions
2024
Group exhibition – Séguret
Art show – Penmarch
SALON DU VERRE – Honfleur
ABCD Gallery – Mougins
MAC Museum Art & Cars – Singen Germany
Permanent exhibition Atelier Galerie, Ancône, Drôme
2023
Eva Vermeerbergen Gallery
Glass Biennial – Montélimar
CARREFOUR DES ARTS – Lalouvesc
OTHER CITY – Vaison la romaine
Galerie Charles DIEHL – Avignon
Exhibition Bernard Froment – Nadine Nacinovic – Saint cyr au mont d’or
Permanent exhibition Atelier Galerie, Ancône, Drôme
2022
SALON DU VERRE – Honfleur
Bann’Art – Banne
Permanent exhibition – Atelier Galerie Catharina Raby – Gigondas
Permanent exhibition – Mas du lac – Uzès
Permanent exhibition Atelier Galerie, Ancône, Drôme
2021
SALON DU VERRE – Honfleur
VERRE & LUMIERE – Group show – Montélimar
Bernard Froment – Evelyne Dubour exhibition – Prieuré de Charrière
Bernard Froment – Evelyne Dubour exhibition – Château de l’Arthaudière
ART AND MATERIAL 3 Bernard Froment – Ghani Ghouar – Saillans
Permanent exhibition Atelier Galerie, Ancône, Drôme
2020
Group exhibition, Cliousclat, Drôme
PERMAE exhibition, Grande Halle de la Villette, Paris
Permanent exhibition Atelier Galerie, Ancône, Drôme
2016 – 2019
SIAC Marseille
SCULPTURUM Paris
Art3f Mulhouse
Art3f Brussels
SM’ART Aix en Provence
ART MONTPELLIER, Galerie Déclicart, Vaison la Romaine
ART AND THE VINEYARD, Ferme des Arts, Vaison la Romaine
ART DANS LA NEF, Vaison la Romaine
THE ART OF DREAMING, Château Les Oliviers de Salettes, Charols
MIRMAND’ART
Permanent exhibition – Galerie Bernard Froment – Mirmande
DECLICART Gallery – Vaison la Romaine
MIRMAND’ART
ART UP LILLE – Galerie Déclicart – Vaison la Romaine
Permanent exhibition – Galerie Bernard Froment – Mirmande
LAUSANNE ART FAIR – Galerie Déclicart – Vaison la Romaine
FORÊT MYSTIQUE // Bernard Froment – Anne Louvigné // Galerie AC Simon – Paris
DECLICART Gallery – Vaison la Romaine
Permanent exhibition – Galerie Bernard Froment – Mirmande
2011- 2015
GALERIE BARNOUIN, Solo exhibition, Pierrelatte
ART’SPIRINE” exhibition in Issy-les-Moulineaux
LES MURS DE LA TUILIERE, Old Vaison la Romaine
Les Jardins de BURRHUS, Vaison la Romaine
LES MURS DE LA TUILIERE, St Marcellin les Vaison
L’ARTISTERIE, Poët-Laval
ART EN DEMEURE, Mirmande
ART EN CAPITAL, Grand Palais, PARIS
CHAPELLE DE RAC, Malataverne
NEW METAMORPHOSES, La Mothe st Héray
ARTS EVASIONS, Burgundy
PLACE DES ARTS, Bercy, Paris
SCULPTURUM, Strasbourg
Art3f Paris
2004 – 2010
Exhibition Chapelle St André, Montélimar
Rencontres Agriculturelles, St Pal en Chalancon
7 stained glass windows, altar and lectern, Ancona church
GALERIE EMILIANI, Dieulefit
Group exhibition, Mirmande
Exhibition Abbaye de Léoncel
GALERIE BRULEE, Strasbourg
GALERIE EMILIANI, Solo exhibition, Dieulefit
GALERIE ” LES VIEUX MURS ” Antibes
Solo exhibition, Château Pibarnon, La Cadière d’azur
EXILS” Festival, Annonay
Center d’art ESPACE CHABRILLAN, Montélimar
1997 – 2003
Hommage à la lumière, Montreal, Quebec
Photographic exhibition, Grignan
Rencontres Agriculturelles, St Pal en Chalancon
Exhibition Abbaye de Noirlac
1991 – 1996
First exhibition, “DE TERRIEN A VERRIEN”, Montélimar
“Champs de liberté” Open-air installation, Ancona
“Uni Verre Son”, Contemporary Art Week, Montélimar
“A CIEL OU VERRE, Sainte Beaume
“Uni Verre Son”, FAUST, Toulouse. Villa Gilet, Lyon. FUTURA, Crest
“A fleur de peau”, Solo exhibition, Charmes sur Rhône
1st BIENNALE D’ART SACRE CONTEMPORAIN, Lyon Villeurbanne.