Ludovic Dervillez
1973
(FRANCE)
FRENCH
Ludovic Dervillez (b. 1973) is a French abstract painter whose evolving practice centers on the relationship between reality and painting, now marked by a minimal, clarified approach. His recent work explores the tension of gesture, contingency, and intensity, shifting away from accumulation toward incisive, essential acts on canvas.
Education and Career
Dervillez graduated from the École Supérieure d’Art et de Design in Reims in 1995, where he taught until 2005. His artistic approach deepened during a residency at La Fileuse (Reims, 2016–2019), a period of focused experimentation. He previously founded and directed La Grange Gallery, an independent space for contemporary abstraction. While this curatorial experience informed his perspective and situated his work in a broader international context, he no longer organizes exhibitions and is now fully dedicated to his painting practice.
Inspiration and Style
Influenced by artists such as Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, Julian Schnabel, Jenny Brosinski, and David Ostrowski, Dervillez’s work is rooted in the possibilities of gesture and presence. He has moved from dense, layered compositions to a more refined, concentrated intensity. For Dervillez, abstraction is a field of sensitive exploration—a way to inhabit the present, where painting attests, rather than represents, the vibration of an instant.
Technique and Process
Dervillez’s current paintings are characterized by a minimal, clarified language that resists decorative minimalism. He works with acrylic, oil, graphite, charcoal, ballpoint pen, pastel, oil chalk, and spray paint, using the raw surface as a zone of attention where each gesture is an event. His process now favors brief, decisive interventions—each act a balance between risk and necessity, with the trace as evidence of passage and presence.
“The gesture, caught up in the tension of reality- resistance, rhythm, pressure - does not aim at the image: it captures the present, fixing it in its necessity, in its element of risk. The trace, resulting from an irreversible act, bears the evidence of a passage: sustained force, exposed fragility, irrevocable decision.” - Ludovic Dervillez
Exhibitions
Dervillez has exhibited internationally, with solo and group shows across France, Belgium, Germany, the UK, Australia, Cyprus, and the USA.
Representation
Dervillez is collaborating with a number of galleries in France, and Australia. IdeelArt has been promoting his distinctive abstract works since 2022.
