BIOGRAPHY
Pierre Ribà is a French sculptor born in Ardèche in 1934. He lives and works in the south of France and Spain. Ribà is known for his mastery of laminated cardboard, which he uses to create often abstract sculptures.

His artistic style is influenced by the nature he encountered during his childhood in Ardèche, rather than by his training at the Beaux-Arts. After completing his studies, Ribà restored houses with craftsmen while also painting. He began exhibiting his work in 1958.

Early in his career, he worked with natural materials such as driftwood, before focusing on cardboard. His technique involves cutting, gluing and sanding cardboard, using varying thicknesses and highlighting the cells and voids. His works are characterised by simple, often symmetrical shapes and a palette limited to white, black or the natural colour of the cardboard.

Pierre Ribà's sculptures
show a variety of artistic influences, although the artist himself does not directly claim them.
References can be seen 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 simplifying forms can be seen in his work.
Primitive and archaic art, visible in his 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 encountered during his childhood in Ardèche, as well as the simplicity of things and people in the countryside. His artistic approach aims to purify forms and strive for 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 Pierre Ribà's evolution from a young man inspired by nature to an artist renowned for his unique mastery of cardboard as a sculptural medium.

"My identity is that of the farmers of the Ardèche, slow men who need a lot of time to say things... with little, with simplicity. I oscillate between the serenity of my origins and the turmoil of life. In my work, the material is not only a means to express a thought, it also participates in the formation of the idea... This work sometimes has a raw, almost primitive aspect, sometimes a more sophisticated one. I am fond of simple, refined forms. I tend to free my work from anecdote, to decant reality of its dross, its heaviness. I want to move towards the essential, to flourish in sobriety, in the simplification of forms... I tend to get rid of all incidental effects... stones, traces, fossils, dolmens, caves... primitive rather than classical works, all of which fascinate me. My work is filled with images that come from far away... vestiges of another place... and yet are of our time. My works do not lose their identifiable references between imagination and reality... between hoped-for serenity and heartbreak. The vibrancy of life, idyll and rupture. ‘I want to get to the heart of things, to flourish in sobriety, in the simplification of forms. I seek to work towards the universal.’ Sculptures are objects that speak for themselves. They tell of paths taken, paths hidden... there is nothing to add... NOTHING... "

Pierre Ribà