Pierre Ribà is a French sculptor who was born in Ardèche in 1934. He lives and works in the south of France and in Spain. Ribà is known for his mastery of laminated cardboard, which he uses to create sculptures that are often abstract.
His artistic style is influenced by the nature he experienced in his childhood in the Ardèche, rather than by his training at the Beaux-Arts. After his studies, Ribà restored houses with craftsmen while painting. He began exhibiting his work in 1958.
At the beginning of his career, he worked with natural materials such as driftwood, before concentrating on cardboard. His technique consists of cutting, gluing and sanding the cardboard, using various thicknesses and emphasising the cells and the empty spaces. His works are characterised by simple, often symmetrical forms and a palette limited to white, black, or the natural colour of the cardboard.
show various artistic influences, although the artist himself does not claim them directly.
References can be perceived to:
African statuary and Cycladic art, particularly in his half-face, half-mask figures.
Modernist sculptors such as Constantin Brancusi, Jean Arp and Ossip Zadkine, whose approach to the simplification of forms can be found.
Primitive and archaic art, visible in its rounded forms reminiscent of pebbles or megaliths.
Japanese origami, which has influenced some of his more angular works, evoking the folding of paper.
However, it is important to note that these influences are not central to Ribà’s work. His main source of inspiration remains the nature he experienced in his childhood in the Ardèche region of France, as well as the simplicity of things and people in the countryside. His artistic approach aims to refine forms and to focus on the essential, creating works that are both simple and enigmatic.
Recent developments
During lockdown, he changed his style, turning to drawing people he met on walks, particularly in La Grande-Motte.
This biography shows the evolution of Pierre Ribà, from a young man inspired by nature to an artist recognised for his unique mastery of cardboard as a sculptural medium.
My identity is that of the peasants of the Ardèche, slow men who need a lot of time to say things… with the little and the simple. I oscillate between the serenity of my origins and the heartbreaks of life. In my work, the material is not only a means to an end, it also contributes to the formation of the idea… this work sometimes has a raw, almost primitive aspect, sometimes a more sophisticated one. I like simple, refined forms. I tend to free my work from the anecdotal, to decant reality of its dross, its heaviness. I want to get to the heart of the matter, to flourish in the sobriety, the simplification of forms… I tend to get rid of all incidental effects… stones, traces, fossils, dolmens, caves… primitive rather than classical works, all this fascinates me. My work is permeated with images that come from afar… vestiges of another place… and yet are of our time. My works do not lose their identifiable bearings between the imaginary and reality… between hoped-for serenity and heartbreak, the hustle and bustle, idyll and rupture. ‘I want to get to the heart of the matter, to flourish in sobriety, in the simplification of forms. I seek to work towards the universal.’ THE sculptures are objects that speak. They tell of paths taken, paths stolen… there is nothing more to add… NOTHING…
Pierre Ribà
