Dominique Ladoux was born in 1952 in Paris. She now lives and works in Aveyron (South of France).

She began painting as a small child and went on to study art at the following institustions :

-          - ROEDERER Academy of Arts in Paris

-          -  History of Art & Fine Arts at the University of Paris I (Panthéon Sorbonne)

-          - Interior architecture at the CAMONDO school, Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs (Paris)

-          - Painting techniques of the Masters & contempory materials with Marc HAVEL, former Director of the Lefranc-Bourgeois research labotary (Colart), at the French Institute for the Restoration of Works of Art (Paris)

-            - Traditional copper plate engraving and printing techniques & the GOETZ process with Marie-Geneviève HAVEL

Her professional career has included :

-          - engineering drawing for precisions cast for aeronautical parts

-          -  assistant to Pierre-Yves Leprince, theatrical set designer

-          - private tuition in drawing & painting

  BACKGROUND

Her artistic streak was nurtured from her earliest childhood by her grandfather -  a sculptor - who, by way of a basic induction into artistic education, taught her how to «read the Grand Book of Nature». He showed her how to recognize trees from the patterns in the bark and identify birds from the color of their eggs, and she would spend many hours perched in trees, or down in the bushes gazing at the insects and the texture of the earth.

Later on, during the course of her art studies, she was overcome by a very strong emotion, which caused her to faint and which would mark her forever as an artist. In the «Drawings Room» of the Louvre, the curator handed her Michael Angelo’s ink drawing of «Christ at the Cross», and then a book of Gauguin’s gouache paintings from his Tahiti period. She instantly felt the creative power and searing intensity of Michael Angelo’s transposition of thought through a perfect gesture, and Gauguin’s free use of color. In both instances, she experienced an expression of life and artistic sensibility taken to its very highest level.
Today, she feels a closeness to painters such as Goya, for the temperament and freedom of his forms of expression; Turner for his broad sketches and gentle effects contrasted with powerful brushwork; Monet, who knows only too well how to evoke the changing effects of light and color in nature, and Zao Wou - Ki, who succeeds in allying the harmony of a breath of air with the subtlety of color.

Bearing all this in mind, it becomes easier to grasp this very particular outlook which runs through the creation of Dominique’s every work. An outlook which harks back to her childhood and the subtle observations she would undertake of nature; an outlook whose innocence she held on to and expressed through variation in format and perspective (high & low angle, zoom) and which gradually developed thanks to her in-depth study of the world’s greatest painters, materials past and present, the art of engraving, architecture, theatrical set design and the perfect curve during her time spent in aeronautical drawing.

Bringing together all of nature’s varied elements, her paintings seek to translate, through a spontaneous, quickly executed brushwork swirling into a cosmic dance full of vitality and joyous colors, the different rhythms of the Universe, and, through her free use of light, color and movement, in both its visible and invisible dimensions, introduce us to its spiritual side, its mysteries and its innermost soul.
 

AGORA GALLERY PRESS SHEET, NEW YORK

With an impulsive, dynamic style of brushwork, French painter Dominique Ladoux creates works that connote the vast rather than the moderate, and the illimitable rather than the measured. Ladoux’s abstract paintings are distinctive for their aura of darkness punctuated by vivid, often brilliant color, like a fiery landscape within  the expansive obscurity of night, or the intensity of a dream engendered within the dim reaches of sleep. Her paintings seek translate «  the different rythms of the universe... in both its visible and invisible dimensions. » Ladoux’s style recalls abstract expressionism but is driven by a passion for natural, dramatic light – indeed, her art seems to derive its color and its energy, its regenerative impetus, from the natural world, both in her organic abstraction of forms and in her mimicking of nature’s most extraordinary orchestrations of color. Ladoux has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout France, and currently lives in Aveyron (South of France)

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

-          - 1976  Society of Artists & Decorators, Grand Palais, Paris

-           - 1981  Museum of Popular Arts & Traditions, Paris

-          -  1984  Art Show Exhibition, Versailles

-          -  1985  Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Paris

-          -  1986  International Center of Contemporary Art, Paris

-           - 1987  Exhibition for the 20^th anniversary of the Val d’Oise, Ermont

-           - 1981 – 2006 : Art Exhibitions at Enghien-les-Bains, Beauchamp, Taverny, Pontoise, Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Nesles-la-Vallée, Val d’Oise

-           - 2005 International exhibition of Contemporary Art : « Emotions in Motion ». Ferrara. Italy

-          -  2006 Firenze. Villa Medicea  « la Ferdinanda » Artimino, Italy . Exhibition : « Horizons »

PERSONAL EXHIBITION

-           - 1981 First Beauchamp Exhibtion, Val d’Oise

-           - 1986 Opens a multi-skill center for creative input & design to encourage exchanges between visual artists, musicians and writers at La Cantate in Paris. Organises exhibitions for painters

-          -  1991, 1992 & 2004 « Menilmontant Workshop Open Days », Paris

-           - 1992 & 2003 « Belleville Workshop Open Days », Paris

-           - 1997 Espace Kessel, Beauchamp, Val d’Oise

-           - 2000 Galerie Art Présent, Paris

-          -  1987 – 2006 permanent exhibition in her « workshop-gallery », La Cantate, Paris

-           - 2004 – 2005 Agora Gallery – Soho – New York