André
Lambotte

André Lambotte was born in Namur (Belgium) in 1943. He lives and works in the Ardennes.
Initially drawn to music (he was a jazz musician), he later devoted himself to the visual arts, while remaining a passionate music lover.
“In 1972 “, Josefa Knaepen writes “he embarked on the singular adventure of an art based on sign, rhythm, structure, repetition and duration” , and began what he called Anthropographies, a kind of automatic writing with vaguely anthropomorphic signs traced very spontaneously in Chinese ink in superimposed registers like a page of writing.
It was during this period that was in frequent contact with Christian Dotremont, and abandoned oil painting for Chinese ink, canvas for paper and, very often, colour for black and white.
Gradually, his Anthropographies became denser, shedding their already relative figurativeness and metamorphosing into abstract graphs that emphasized structure, rhythm and texture.
In 1986, without abandoning ink and paper, André Lambotte gradually returned to colour, using (coloured) pencil strokes that he superimposed in numerous layers “to illuminate from below the (ink) drawing to come “.
Between 1987 and 1996, mastery of this “mixed technique” led to the creation of major large-format series such as the highly structured Terzetto, Continuo and Ostinato, and the more airy Partita and Pizzicato.
From 1996, on the other hand, a long series of short, yet very dense forms, the Fuscelli, were produced, while between 1999 and 2002, Travail de l’herbe (Work on grass) consisted of seventeen variations dedicated to seventeen writers whose texts or fragments of texts, chosen from the artist’s library, had a direct or indirect relationship with the “thick layers of time” covered by this theme.
In 2005, a milestone was reached in André Lambotte’s work, mainly through two series Promenades à la Falaise Rouge (Walks to Red Cliff), in homage to the Chinese Song scholar Su Dongpo, and Arrière-saison. These pieces stand out from their predecessors, not only because of the use of colour plays a key role, but above all through the – perhaps temporary – renunciation of the more or less implicit reference to the writing line that had been virtually unchanged since 1972. André Lambotte, notes Claude Lorent, “offers himself a new freedom, a now infinite field of exploration”.
This quivering treatment of the coloured surface, stubbornly exploring the tenuous edges of space and time, becomes even more pronounced with the highly musical Textures suite, initiated in 2007, whose polyrhythms, graphic and chromatic micro-intervals contain a rare lyricism that doesn’t immediately reveals its full flavour, but discreetly invites everyone to perceive its essence.
Today, André Lambotte, notably in the cycles Stries, La part des anges, Mudaï, Between the lines, Les variations Kikuchi, Ajours and Espaces rêvés is even more concerned with questioning the notion of temporality through multiple variations that translate, in a very subtle yet increasingly radical way, an expression that is both minimalist and maximalist.
Since 1971, André Lambotte has exhibited regularly in numerous galleries, museums and contemporary art centers (Brussels, Cologne, Montreal, New York, Paris, Vienna…).
He was awarded the Prix de la Jeune Peinture Belge in 1975 and 1979.
Elected Member of the Académie Royale des Sciences, des Lettres et des Beaux-Arts de Belgique in 1996.
His works can be found in various public and private collections (Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, USA).

A FEW BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES :

Catalogue de l’exposition André Lambotte, Bruxelles,
Palais des Beaux-Arts, 1982. Texte de Michel Baudson suivi d’un entretien avec Claude Lorent.
Catalogue de l’exposition André Lambotte, Köln, Belgisches Haus, 1983. Textes d’Eddy Devolder.
Paul Louis Rossi, André Lambotte, entretiens suivis de textes de Michel Baudson, Eddy Devolder, Claude Lorent, Jacques Meuris, René Micha, Jean-Pierre Verheggen, Mons, Artgo, 1997.
André Lambotte et Paul Louis Rossi, Fuscelli, préface d’Alain Delaunois, Gerpinnes, Tandem, 2000.
André Lambotte, Le travail de l’herbe, préface de Claude Lorent, Gerpinnes, Tandem, 2003.
André Lambotte, De la contrainte librement consentie dans la peinture contemporaine, Bruxelles, Académie Royale de Belgique, Bulletin de la Classe des Beaux-Arts, 7-12 2004
Catalogue de l’exposition André Lambotte – Ecrire le temps obstinément – Travaux sur papier 1972-2005, Namur, Maison de la Culture, 2005. Textes de Gaspard Hons, Jean-Marie Klinkenberg, Claude Lorent.
Catalogue de l’exposition André Lambotte – Dans d’autres nuances du temps, Bruxelles, Galerie Didier Devillez, 2007. Texte de Michel Baudson.
André Lambotte, Conversation avec Maxime Longrée, Gerpinnes, Tandem, 2010.
Catalogue de l’exposition Ostinato – Dessin / Musique / Interactions, Namur, Maison de la Culture, 2013. Textes e. a. d’André Lambotte, Jean-Yves Bosseur…