| Raphaël Lonné leaves school at the age of twelve. He
is a fragile, sensitive and asthmatic child. He takes on different jobs:
tramway conductor, caretaker, driver and worker in a hospital. He also likes
poetry and music, and composes short pieces for parties. He plays in small
orchestras and starts drawing figurative themes. His colleagues make fun
of him and give him the nickname of "poet". He ends up becoming a postman
in a close-by small town. In the 50s he gets involved in seances with spirits
and discovers his true artistic talents. Guided by his hand and in a state
of trance, he draws, always from left to right and from top to bottom, as
if he were writing; he actually sees his own work as "pictorial poetry".
His drawings take us into imaginary landscapes, from which emerge ghost
looking silhouettes, animals or women's faces. He uses lead pencils, oil
paints, Indian ink or felt tip pen. His works become gradually abstract
as if taken over by an overwhelming motion. |