BIOGRAPHY (full)
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1961-1977
Born in Quimper, France
Christian was born in the heart of the Celtic region of Brittany, into a family of artists and engineers. An explorer at heart, he set out to discover his region at the age of 3 before being rescued meditating on the banks of a river! Obviously contemplation was to become the root of his attraction to art and spirituality.
1977-1980
College in Rennes
Art school in Nantes
He obtained his baccalaureate in Rennes, his mother's birthplace, and also the home of his grandfather, a locally renowned painter. Painting then became an intrinsic part of his youth. However, against all odds, he decides to first study parapsychology, intrigued by the paranormal phenomena that surrounds him. Shaken by a mysterious illness that almost took his life at the age of 17, he finally decides to enter the School of Fine Arts in Nantes.
1980-1988
Art school in Paris
First commissions and
press articles
His parents' divorce shakes him up but gives him a new opportunity to explore the world. He left for Paris where he partly financed his art and architecture studies by painting cloudy skies on Parisian ceilings. He is enthusiastic about the techniques associated to mural paintings as a source of creativity. He left to study the Italian technique of fresco painting in the workshop of Franco Benocci in Tuscany, himself a student of Max Ernst in his youth. There, he quickly integrated the rules of perspective and immersed himself in the masterpieces of Giotto, Tiepolo and Mantegna, among others. Upon his return to Paris he will quickly put his new knowledge and taste for surrealism into practice. He quickly became the center of unexpected media attention. Between murals, he found time to experiment with different formats and artistic mediums and his first exhibitions in Paris were a success. His artworks started to be exhibited also across Europe like Geneva, Rome and Stockholm. He also had the chance to participate in prestigious international exhibitions, such as at the Grand Palais and the Beaubourg Museum in Paris. Like other artists before him, he does not hesitate to blur the line between pure and decorative art. For example, he designed a line of furniture and fabrics as well as decors for plays or charity events.
1988-1990
Live and work in New York
Exhibitions & projects
For the next 4 years he worked and evolved mainly within the European cultural elite. The list of his friends and clients becomes impressive: Yves Saint Laurent, Ricardo Bofill, Paloma Picasso, Jean Claude Binoche, Jacques Grange, Jean Michel Wilmotte and many other personalities . He also befriends the actress Isabelle Adjani who introduces him to the world of cinema. After an exhibition in Stockholm, Frida Lyngstad, the lead singer of the group Abba proposes him to paint a mural in her residence. Upon its completion, he retuns to Paris to receive the news that he won the competition organized for the mural decoration of the palace of the King of Morocco in Casablanca. It would take him a year to complete this huge task. Isabelle Adjani, her friend Jacques Grange and him took this opportunity to undertake the exploration of the Atlas Mountains during which he made the preparatory drawings for the Tichka Hotel in Marrakech and the Hyatt Hotel in Casablanca. Once these two projects were completed, he returned to Paris where, during a dinner at a renowned Parisian antique dealer, the English billionaire Michael Stevens asked him to cover the two floors of a New York penthouse with frescoes. He accepted under pressure from his wife, the daughter of one of his favorite French actresses, Anouk Aimé. To his great surprise, he was invited to travel to New York two days later by Concorde. It would take him a year to complete this extensive work. Fortunately, friends came to encourage him, such as the philosopher Bernard Henry Levi or the actresses Arielle Dombasle and Catherine Deneuve. Upon the completion of these frescoes he decides to stay another year and a half in the Big Apple to participate in two exhibitions, the Kip's Bay architectural show and another dedicated to French art in Bloomingdale's. Mary French, of the Rockefeller family, decides to sponsor him so he can become an American resident. He is invited in the artistic circles of Soho where he met Andy Warhol and Jean Michel Basquiat with whom he worked on a painting project for the famous Studio 54.
1990-1995
Live and work in Santa Barbara, California.
Spiritual development
After 2 intense years in New York, he happily accepted a big project in Santa Barbara, California: the domain of Las Tejas. This decorative and profitable project allowed him to pay tribute to his Italian masters by re-interpreting the Italian Renaissance style. During his 2 years stay he fell in love with the Californian lifestyle especially that he had always felt drawn to this mecca of the 1960s revolution and Eastern spirituality. He quickly felt at home. Between his work hours, he found the time and motivation to become an Ashtanga yoga teacher, practicing fasting and Soto Zen meditation. He chose not to return to New York and instead started to create paintings and screens that he sold to his local clientele, mainly personalities from American cinema, some he already met in Paris like Rob Reiner and Warren Beatty. He was even offered the opportunity to teach at UCSB but decided it was too early in his career.
1992-1995
Arkeos, a commercial endeavor
In 1992, he agreed to participate in the creation of a company, Arkeos International, dedicating itself to mural painting associated with interior architecture, in order to accept very large projects around the world. This allowed him to leverage its technical expertise to innovate in the field of decorative murals and textures. He invented different techniques for Arkeos, including the Galice and the Palatine, which were immensely successful and allowed the company to develop rapidly. But he discovered that his spiritual and artistic activities which he pursued in parallel were incompatible with the economic constraints of such a commercial enterprise and resigned in 1995.
1995-2001
EE.UU: prestigious Exhibitions
& projects
In 1995, he met the French architect Thierry Despont who, after seing his paintings, part of the renovation of the "Miniatura", master piece by the American architect Frank Lloyd Wright, commissioned him to execute some paintings for Bill Gates' new home in Seattle. In fact Christian ended up being also in charge of the coloration of the all project which lasted 2 years. Meanwhile he was also contacted by the royal family of Saudi Arabia who asked him to design and create murals for various palaces in the Kingdom. The following year, he was given 3 awards for his work on the Miniatura and was commissioned to realize the paintings of the hall of the Academy of Motion Pictures in Hollywood .
2001-2007
Live and work on the French Riviera, France
It was only after numerous other projects in California and elsewhere in the United States carried out with his new Mexican partner, the artist Ino Mora, that Christian decided to return to settle in Europe, on the Côte d'Azur. He spent nearly 6 years in this new home, enjoying a respite from his nomadic life, near his great inspiration, Italy, which he visited often. He continues to paint in his new studio but sometimes neglects it in favor of murals that he paints for his clients in the region, mainly in St Jean Cap Ferrat and Mónaco.
2007-2010
Archeology in Egypt and Mexico
It was upon returning from a stay in Dubai where he was invited to exhibit his works that he decided to stop in Egypt to satisfy his taste for archaeology. He settled on the banks of the Nile, in Luxor, where he studied the monuments of Egyptian antiquity for 6 months. The particular light and colors of this region surprise him and fuel his inspiration. Later on, he will continue the study of archeology, this time in pre-Hispanic Mexico. It's love at first sight. Conquered by the soul of this country, he settled in Guadalajara with his partner and friend, the Mexican artist and shaman Ino Mora. For Granvelle, these ancient sites represent a portal to a past when humans lived in harmony with nature and treated her with respect, even revered it. This strong connection nourished and enriched them spiritually. He is also interested in the imprint of time on materials such as bronze, glass and ceramics. He feels the strong desire to express it through the textures of his paintings, correlating with his research into alchemy and the phenomena of inner transmutation.
2010-2017
The Mexican years
Jardin de Luz spiritual center
It is therefore in the capital of the state of Jalisco, cradle of the Mariachis, and of some of the best artists in Mexico that Christian settles. He was seduced by this intense and authentic lifestyle and by this soul of Mexico which reminded him of a more spiritual life. With the assistance of Ino Mora he created "Jardin de Luz", a center dedicated to research on spiritual development including a "templo mayor" for meditation and additional yoga rooms, all in the center of a huge garden, created by his American landscaper friend, Robert Clark.
2017-2023
Chamanic Center
Metamorphosis
It is through “Jardin de Luz” that Christian will become familiar with local shamanism. He was immediately fascinated by the profound and lasting results that these ancient rituals and ceremonies have on the participants. He and Ino Mora then decided to devote themselves to it and create another center dedicated to shamanism on the outskirts of Guadalajara. It was then that Christian remembered a prediction made by a Hopi shaman in Arizona that he would one day paint his visions. The circle was thus closed. He devotes himself today to continuing his metamorphosis and to creating purely visionary and esoteric paintings, inspired by his adventurous life and the incredible diversity of his experiences.