Overview

Grand Mystery of Nature 

"The Art of Lacquer in Pure Art"

• Frederic Halbreich tells us about the great mystery of nature with power and elegance. From the dialogue with the stars emerges an infinite and mystical intimacy.

 

• It is indeed a steep path, very close to the mystical itinerary of Saint John of the Cross, as witnessed by his great poem "Dark Night of the Soul", this "night fairer than any day".

 

• By cutting across fields, the artist avoids the barrier of earthly representation. Afterwards, things become simple; everyone can perceive it and will distill the heart and harvest the essence. All paths start from form and all come back to the same beginning. What is not essential is superfluous. This may lack nuance, but isn't this the obligatory path towards the wave of the absolute?

 

• The more absolute the black, the more infinite the riches it exudes: either openings into the beyond or sometimes subtle reflections of light which are as many aurora boreales (or australes? Or rather perhaps sidereal) - at the heart of that night.

 

• Suggestions which are like many unreal draperies, carrying invitations to guess what may lie hidden behind those immaterial veils, for want of being able to lift them.

 

• And this realm is also that of an inhabited silence which, for this artist fascinated by music, is to be found in meta-sonority, just as the luminescences enlightening his black lacquers are a meta-light.

 

• Frederic Halbreich has undertaken in the past years to explore all the richness of light enclosed in the heart of the Black. We know the works of Frederic Halbreich in lacquer, a medium of which he is indeed the only artist to have developed his own technique and to sparkle the preciousness in the pure art of his abstraction. To the artist, the painting is not only on a simple surface; it is an object on which the artist creates with complex texture and form. In his lacquers, he brings it out from inside the painting, through the vector of transparency. He calls "sacrophage" the support on which he creates his lacquers. Like lacquer work, these pictorial layers (pigments) – ten or more in number – each require an appropriate time to dry. Then follow new meticulous sandings intended to eliminate scratches or accidents. Besides these, there are his canvases: oils and acrylics where he derives his expression more from gesture. Here, the artist is in search of a balance between the material and the immaterial, between the visible and the invisible, between the tangible and the intangible.

Installation shots
Biography
An International Reputed French-Belgian Painter and Poet
• Frédéric Halbreich, born in Paris on August 28, 1962, is a French-Belgian painter, a poet and a musician.
 
• Frédéric Halbreich begins to paint around 16 years old. Self-taught, however, he went through the Academy of Fine Arts in Watermael-Boitsfort and continued his studies in Paris1. During this period he briefly dabbled in academic teaching at the Watermael-Boitsfort Academy, notably during Roger Someville's monumental art course.
 
• An exhibition of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Foundation, which he visited in Paris in 1978, revealed his vocation to him. There followed a long break, during which he worked out songs (lyrics and music) which he ended up performing himself, first under the name of David Rebel, then under his real name, until 1996. Several records were released.
 
• His trajectory and his work on lacquer well underway, we can read in A. Nardon, Socles et cimaises 2007: “This difficult technique the artist went to learn in Russia and the work of long patience did the rest. »
 
• Each time one believes the artist has reached the extreme limit of his own explorable universe, he springs off even further on to a new stage of this quest,  whose virtual field, stretched towards the asymptote of God’s Absolute, has no further limit than that state of grace called inspiration.
 
 

• Exhibitions:

Since 1997, Frédéric Halbreich has exhibited his paintings all over the world: Belgium (Brussels) of course, but also the United States (New York), Canada (Montreal), France (Paris), Switzerland (Geneva), Israel (Tel Aviv), Portugal (at the GULBENKIAN foundation in Lisbon). He has a totally unique style.

 

Since 2022, as the artist living in Belgium, Art Yī becomes the new art gallery of Frédéric Halbreich in Belgium.

 

Our latest exhibitions :

2023: Luxembourg Art Fair, Luxembourg

2023: Affordable Art Fair, Brussels, Belgium

2022: "Alumnoïde", group exhibition, Brussels, Belgium

 

2022: Intempo by Luc Leroi - Bredel (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg)

2021: Intempo by Luc Leroi - Bredel (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg)

2019: Samin Wonen - Roeselare (Belgium)

2018: Nao Expo - Verviers (Belgium)

2017: Exhibitions in different galleries, Brussels (Belgium)

2017: Château de Waleffe - (Belgium)

1996-2016: Permanent exhibitions in great numbers of galleries - Brussels - (Belgium)

2015: Château Mottin - Hannut (Belgium)

2013: Balâtre (Belgium)

2012: Lineart - Art Gent - Ghent (Belgium)

2012: Art Nocturne Knocke  - Knokke-Heist (Belgium)

2010: The Expressers - Paris (France)

2009: Brussels (Belgium)

2009: Berck (France)

2003: Private exhibition - Geneva (Switzerland)

2002: Knokke-Heist (Belgium)

2002: Private exhibition - Geneva (Switzerland)

2001: Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation - Lisbon (Portugal)

2001: Geneva (Switzerland)

2000: Flemish Cultural Center De Krikelaart - Brussels (Belgium)

1999: International Fair of Contemporary Arts - Luxembourg City (Grand Duchy of Luxembourg)

1999: Exhibition of the 30 Abbeys of Val-Saint-Lambert - Liège (Belgium)

1998: Simon Blais Gallery - Montreal (Canada)

 

Press & Publications:

- April 24, 1997: The Bulletin, C. Moffet.
- February-March 1998: Crescendo no 33, cover (M3750-33).
- November 7-8, 1998: Catalog of the Schaerbeek exhibition.
- March 1999: Arts Antiques Auctions no. 299, A. Hustache
- April 7, 1999: La Libre Belgique - La Libre Culture Page 13, Cl.Lorent.
- April 15, 1999: The Bulletin, C. Moffet.
- April 1999: Regards - Bruxelles notre ville, D Baumerder.
- May 21, 2001: 25th Lisbon Contemporary Music Meeting, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
- May 21-June 3, 2001: 25th Gulbenkian Encounters of Contemporary Music, P&A Woolf.
- 2003-2004 season: With, Harry Halbreich.
- 19 March 2006: Schaerbeek infos no 25 - The voluptuous world of master lacquerer, X. Mouffe.
- April 2007: Socles et Cimaises 2 - Exhibition reviews, A. Nardon.
- March 24, 2007: Le Soir - Victory p. 35 - Lacquered impressions, A. Maziers.
- December 2007: Regards no 653 - Laques, G.Kamps
- December 2007: Event no. 367 - Lacquers by FH at the Espace arts Galerie, S.Tarin.
- December 2007: Art.Expo no 64.
- May 2009: Collect AAA no 400 - Material effects, A. Hustache.
- May 2009: Contact J no 225 - A black light in the white night, D. Goldberg.
- May 2009: Regards no 687 - A black light in the white night, D. Baumerder.
- May 22, 2009: La Libre Belgique - Free Arts - A black and brilliant gesture, Cl. Lorent.
- 7 December 2009: Journal de Télé Bruxelles - meeting with Frédéric Halbreich.
- March 2010: Regards no 707 - Noire Luminescence, G.Kamps
March 2010: La Libre Belgique - Free Arts Frédéric Halbreich - Painting, (Paris Les Expresseurs), Cl.Lorent.
March 2010: Contact J no 233 - Noire Luminescence, D.Goldberg.
March 2010: Contact J no 248 - Frédéric Halbreich - artistic double shot - Ground Views / Lacquers & Aluminescences.
March 2012: Centrale no 323 - Lacquers and aluminescences, D.B.
April 2012: Regards no 753 - Poems/Frédéric Halbreich "Views from the Ground"
May 2012: Collect AAA no 427 - Frédéric Halbreich / "Lacquers & Aluminescences"
July 2012: General Review June-July 2012 6/7 - Exhibitions / Frédéric Halbreich, A M. Hamesse.
December 2012: Sabam Magazine no 71 oct-nov-december 2012 - "Frédéric Halbreich poet of forms and matter", S. Godefroid.
September 2013: Collect AAA no 438 - Frédéric Halbreich / Halbreich in Balastra, GG.
September 13, 2013: L'Avenir no.? Lacquer, light, lightness, passion -
September 25, 2013: Vlan no 39 Frédéric Halbreich exhibits at the Balastra - F.D. gallery.
May 20, 2015: The Future: Random artistic inspiration from an incident - JP Morhet.
April 2018: Collect AAA no 480 - Frédéric Halbreich exhibits at Nao Expo, GG.
April 2018: Vlan n° - Nao Expo immerses us in the darkness of Frédéric Halbreich, Manon Dumoulin.
May/June 2018 - "Halbreich, Parisian painter", La Référence no 128.

 

• Music:
- What's left? 1983 WEA
- Good evening Anguish / Total delirium 1984 Santa Productions WEA (249 331-7/we 171)**

- Very far from here / Routine 1986 Julisa-Carrère (CA 171 13.952)
- Very far from here (maxi) 1986 Julisa-Carrère (CA 618 8.612)
- The Trace / Desire to leave 1987 VGM-Carrère (CA 171 14.345)
- The Trace (maxi) 1987 VGM-Carrère (CA 618 8.814)
- Titanica / Prison poison 1989 Non Stop Productions-Carrère (CA 171 14.755)

 

• Poetry:
- 2012: Views From The Ground - La Lettrine Culture Editions (ISBN 979-1090932067)
- 2013: Participation in the Brussels book fair with SABAM - Real-time writing of a short story: The Book Fair (Deadly writings at the book fair) (ISBN 978-2-8052-0199-8)
- 2019: Little fair of illusions - Editions Muse (ISBN 978-620-2-29517-8)

 

Events
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Works