In the magical behind-the-scenes of Carnival, amidst the play of shadows and lights, the chiaroscuro, and the touches of light or pronounced colors, the artist elegantly underscores the tribute to his artist-artisans.
He was fascinated by the carnival workers who gradually dress the floats with metal, plastazote, papier-mâché, and paint. From the dark nothingness, the bright light of colorful and figurative volumes slowly emerges… From heavy and rigid materials, disproportionate in comparison to these men, sculptures imbued with lightness and poetry — at times burlesque — are born.
The workshop for creating costumes for the battle of flowers was also a moment of artistic love at first sight. A thousand disparate elements, between the expert fingers of the costumer and seamstresses, become magical costumes, haute couture attire. All these treasures inspired by ethnic art, the theme of this year, are sometimes staged in imaginary settings in front of the palaces on the Promenade des Anglais.
A few words about the artist. Marc Lavalle, a watercolorist, painter, and sculptor, was born in Nice in 1954. After attending Lycée Masséna, he joined the École du Louvre in Paris, then the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts.
He returned to Nice while holding numerous exhibitions abroad, in Luxembourg where he also participates in its Biennial of Sculpture; he created the Biennial of Watercolors of Kairouan (Tunisia), the Ymage gallery in Nice, and is present at the Salon d’Automne in Paris…
Then, while leading his brushes to the southern Mediterranean countries – Rome, Istanbul, Naples, Tunis, Tangier, Marrakech, the Rif… are the subjects of exhibitions – his creations focus on the architecture of the baroque facades of Nice and Italy, the chapels, the perched villages…
An invitation to discovery or an initiatory journey into a little-known universe…
