Gaël Dufrène
Gaël Dufrène est né en 1971 et vit en Pays de la Loire. Il a développé depuis l’enfance une passion pour les trains et l’ensemble des équipements ferroviaires. Il parcourt la France, comme un journaliste mène l’enquête, de gare en bibliothèques et musées spécialisés.
Après un baccalauréat en mécanique, il commence à accumuler des connaissances dans des cahiers qu’il illustre abondamment. Il se donne pour mission de retracer l’histoire ferroviaire mondiale. Plus les machines sont importantes et complexes, plus elles l’inspirent. Il travaille exclusivement sur papier avec un souci constant de précision et se dit fasciné par ce monde de boulons, d’essieux et de métal… Il édite régulièrement un bulletin d’informations qu’il adresse à ses proches. Si son travail prend sa source dans le dessin technique, il livre une oeuvre poétique unique.
En 2017, ses œuvres ont été acquises par la collection Treger-Saint Silvestre (Portugal). En 2018, La Collection de l’Art brut de Lausanne (Suisse) a acquis un très bel ensemble de dessins. Pour fêter cet événement deux galeries l’ont exposé à Paris, la galerie Hervé Courtaigne et la galerie La Fabuloserie qui lui a consacré une exposition solo. Le Fonds de dotation Art Sans Exclusion également fait l’acquisition d’un nombre important de dessins en 2017 et 2018.
Gaël Dufrène’s biography
Born in 1971 at Saint-Maur-des-Fossés (94) into a family of teachers, Gaël Dufrène lives and works in the Loire region. As a child his fascination for trains, their technology and the railway system saw him travel throughout France. In 1996 he obtained his Baccalauréat in mechanics while continuing to document and illustrate notebooks with his discoveries. Gradually his mission developed into the retracing of the history of railway and mechanical engineering in the world. “If the blueprints don’t exist, I will make them myself !” With his almost naïve drawing of the1886 Saint-Michel-Ivry Omnibus pulled by horses to the double view drawing of the Cléon-Fonte motor, « the ambassador of French motors, » Gaël Dufrène says he considers himself an engineer. His pursuit of technical precision is exceeded by his exacerbated concern for historical accuracy and minute detail. « With my H.Asperger’s syndrome, I have a spatial vision that allows me to completely take apart and put together a motor in my head and even a whole locomotive, » he says. He has completed an ongoing poetic body of work including over a thousand drawings. Since the age of thirty-three he has published in the Dernières Nouvelles du Galoup – DNG , a multi-page newsletter designed to keep his family and friends informed of the progress of his work. He is the Galoup, a whimsical and ingenious character who comments with malice and sincerity his daily life as an open-minded industrious worker. When he’s not drawing machines, he spends his time calculating prime numbers carefully listed in pen and ink in big books.
The Collection de l’Art brut de Lausanne acquired a series of works in 2018 and published a detailed biography by Françoise Monnin in the pamphlet » L’Art Brut » n°26. The EgArt association which revealed his works, produced the Audrey Péguin and Emilie Nathan’s film in 2016, « Gaël Dufrène, le dessinateur de machines ». Since 2017, the Art Sans Exclusion Fund has acquired nine drawings, including three of his early works. A double solo show was organized at The Hervé Courtaigne gallery and at La Fabuloserie gallery in 2018.