Ph. Laborderie at Galerie Lluma

with Ellen Turner Hall 

The new one-man show at the Lluma gallery in Collioure features the  most recent works – paintings, sculptures and  heads – of Philippe Laborderie.  In the past his bright-coloured paintings   of fish, boats  and the sea  found a home  on the walls of Café Sola.  The new exhibition is witness to a change of tone and direction – more sober, hard-edged and delicately balanced.

The paintings, on subdued black, grey and violet backgrounds, propose towers of rectangles, squares  and odd shapes  in an improbable equilibrium, threatening to topple over. But they don’t!  Instead  the artist has  composed the canvas in such a way as to reveal  an underlying harmony, proportion and depth.

The  sculptures, of reinforced concrete polished to a dull finish, offer a different  view on each of their four sides. A nose or an eye suggests a human subject, a  spray of flowers suggests  a natural one.  No two  sculptures are alike.  What  they do share is  a stillness,  something ancient and lasting, inherent in  the  solid concrete  columns.   

Laborderie’s heads are constructed from miscellaneous bits of recycled wooden crates with their faded and peeling paint, some with their original labels, some  covered with old magazine illustrations. A crooked nose, deep-set eyes or prominent ears,  lend an individuality to each portrait. Like the famous Easter Island statues,  the heads  bear silent witness to the passage of time.

True to his roots,  playing with colour and shape,  in paint, concrete and wood,  the mature Laborderie has produced a body of work which extends the boundaries of his imagination.

Ph. Laborderie runs from 7 to 25 October  2026 at Galerie Lluma, 5 Rue Docteur Coste, Collioure.  Open Wednesday to Sunday, 11h00 to 12h30 and 17h00 to19h00.