Le monde de M. Audin - Gençay - France
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Alfouine
N 46° 22.425 E 000° 24.227
31T E 300330 N 5138850
Représentation artistique de l'enseigne d'un artiste peintre, en fer forgé peint en rouge.
Artistic representation of the sign of a painter, in wrought iron painted in red.
Waymark Code: WMXT1A
Location: Nouvelle-Aquitaine, France
Date Posted: 02/22/2018
Views: 5
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On the Place du Marché (market square) in Gençay, France, just behind the town hall, an old shop was transformed into an art environment named Le monde de M. Audin (Mr Audin's world).
Life and works
Born July 1, 1957 in Poitiers, Pascal Audin grew up in a family that treated him with denigration. which meant that as an adult he experienced problems in finding a place in life. Although he had jobs such as painter at a construction company and stone cutter, he also was homeless for a couple of years and for some time he was taken to a therapeutic center.
The turning point in his life came at age forty, when a friend asked him why he did not try making visual art.
Later looking back at that moment, Audin said: "Ça a fait tilt dans ma tête, et depuis je peins. Je peins comme les enfants, de manière instinctive. Cela sort de mes tripes, de mon coeur" (It clicked in my head and since then I paint. I paint like children, instinctively. It's out of my guts, out of my heart) ¹.
His colorful paintings are one and all joy and bear witness to a great imagination and curiosity.
In 2002 Audin settled in Gençay, a small town south of Poitiers in the west of France with some 1800 inhabitants. At the market place in the center of town he could rent an old, rather dilapidated shop.
He used this shop both as his dwelling house and as his workshop. A self-taught artist, Audin produced a large quantity of all kind of artworks, such as totems, paintings and postcards. He decorated the interior and exterior walls with frescoes, installed a variety of items, such as a collection of decorated snow/christmasballs or a collection of keys added to a ceiling....
The artist's house became an art environment, which soon began to contribute to the identity of the town. As the painter of Gençay Audin became a central personality of the community.