Francis Pavy
Artist
A lifelong resident of Louisiana, Francis X Pavy was born in Lafayette on March 2, 1954. As a child, Francis studied art under the direction of Elemore Morgan Jr. In college he studied music, ceramics, animation, painting, printmaking and sculpture, graduating in 1976 with a fine arts degree in sculpture. In 1977, Pavy started working in a glass shop, making leaded and beveled glass windows. In 1982, he opened his own glass studio. Pavy says of his time working with glass, “Designing glass had a great impact upon my later painting style. The linear quality of leaded glass design, dealing with flat planes of color, and the simulation of transmitted light were important elements I had in my vocabulary when I again approached painting.” He adopted painting as his primary medium in 1985.
Francis Pavy's works vibrate with life, color and musical rhythm. Pavy’s work is populated by an eclectic mix of characters living in unusual places involved in extraordinary activities. The abstract dimension in his works is always profoundly grounded in southern motifs and culture. Pavy touches on many subjects in his work including, mysticism, love, loss and separation, humor, betrayal, friendship and loyalty as well as many other themes. Pavy works in many media including paintings, prints, constructions and sculpture.
Pavy’s work has been well received not only regionally, but also nationally and internationally with one-man exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Houston, Aspen, New Orleans, France and Switzerland. Pavy has also participated in many notable group shows such as Outward Bound: American Art on the Brink of the Twenty first Century (traveling from the United States to Indonesia and the Middle East), Elvis And Marilyn: 2 times Immortal (traveling from the United States to Japan), Southern Narrative Painting (Southeast U.S.) and Invites: Peintres Louisianais (Paris, France).
Eric Bookhart of Art Papers writes about Pavy’s work; “Pavy uses patterning and figurative distortions to achieve mind-bending effects. With his deeply luminous tonalities, the end result is like an unhinged formalism with a beautiful palette.”In the New Orleans Art Review, Calvin Harland writes :“He, in my opinion, is already a rare artist to come out of the Cajunworld: meaning he is one of the very few artists of a Similar Cajun Heritage to have made in-depth use of his native source material”
Major corporations such as Brown-Ferguson Corporation, Premier, Bankcorp, BMG Music, Capitol Records and Rounder Records have collected Pavy’s work as well many museums and individual collectors. Notable museums and individual collectors include; The New Orleans Museum of Art and the Morris Museum of Art, Ron Howard, Lorne Michaels , Paul Simon, Walker Percy, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, Antione de Caunes, Philippe Djain and Steve Cropper.
Pavy’s work has been published in a variety of catalogs, books and magazine articles. Some catalogs include: Elvis & Marilyn: 2 times Immortal, (US & Japanese Edition), The South: A Treasury Of Art and Literature, Francis X. Pavy, La Musique Zydeco, The Colors of Rhythm, and Outward Bound, American Art on the brink of the 21st Century.
Contact:
Francis Pavy, Artist
337.257.5153
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