THREE ARTISTS FROM MAYENNE ARE EXHIBITING AT THE CHÂTEAU DE BOURGON FROM JUNE 1 TO 30, 2014
Photo by Jean-Paul Gaugain
Jean-Paul Gaugain
is a native of the Mayenne region. Born in Laval in 1950, he completed part of his high school education there before moving to Saint-Lô, where he studied under the painter Michel Clos and later under Francis Pellerin at the École des Beaux-Arts in Rennes.
In 1974, he met Robert Tatin, who showed great interest in his work. Working in drawing, painting, and especially sculpture, he exhibited in France and abroad: Laval, Nantes, Rennes, Saint-Nazaire, Paris, and Warsaw.
He also took on public commissions, then put his personal practice on hold for twenty-five years to teach visual arts and art history.**Now in his later years, Jean-Paul Gaugain has lost none of his creativity and views the world with an unconventional eye, giving free rein to his imagination.**Whether sculptures, paintings, or photographs, his works reflect the full scope of his artistic exploration and the freedom of his spirit.
Photomontage - J.P. Gaugain 
J.P. Gaugain
Pascal Nedjaaï
sculpts under the name of
NAÏ.
Pascal Nedjaaï—photo: A descendant of an Eastern sultan’s gardener, Naï loves trees.
He creates green spaces that he nourishes with his imagination. His garden is brought to life by wire-frame figures sitting on benches, men with bodies made of cellular concrete rising from the ground, and strange heads nailed to branches or placed in cages and on pedestals—a sort of chimerical deities or surrealist figures.**Naï’s faces express feelings of pain, terror, and madness; sometimes they also convey expressions of the human condition.**His bodies are stretched, tortured, and deformed. Whether wood, stone, or plaster, he alternates materials according to his inspiration, though wood remains his medium of choice.
A self-taught artist, he discovered his passion for sculpture at the Mayenne School of Fine Arts and later during workshops with the sculptor Alain Legros. He has participated in numerous exhibitions, including the Salons in Le Mans, Angers, Flers, Brandérion, Pontfarcy, Sablé-sur-Sarthe, and Avrillé, as well as the Ouistreham Sculpture Biennial.
In Mayenne, he has remained a regular at the Salon de Gorron and has held solo exhibitions in Laval (Espace régional and Crédit Mutuel) and at Les Toiles de Mayenne in Fontaine-Daniel. 
The Voice (Pascal Nedjaaï) 
Odile Nedjaaï
, under the username Elido,
blends painting and photography in his works.
His most recent works reflect his interest in weathered materials, whether metal, wood, stone, or paper. Corrosion, rust, fading, or crumbling—in short, the wear and tear of time—are his favorite subjects.
Thus, as she wanders the streets, she seeks out human neglect and abandonment, the ravages of the elements, streaks, stains, blisters, and cracks. She captures these elements to create urban canvases in which fragments of posters, torn newspapers, and various debris are layered upon one another.
Having long been engaged in writing short stories, songs, and poetic reflections, she sometimes incorporates some of her own texts into her paintings or borrows from other authors.
A self-taught artist, she likes to reflect on these words from Picasso to the poet Jacques Prévert, the creator of numerous collages:
“You don’t know how to paint, you don’t know how to draw, but you’re a painter.” She participates in the Dioptine association’s art library as well as in several art fairs (Ernée, Gorron, Sablé-sur-Sarthe, Vire) and holds exhibitions in Mayenne: “Toiles de Mayenne” in Fontaine-Daniel, the Jeux Bouquine bookstore and the Crédit Mutuel headquarters in Laval, and the Pontmain Tourist Office.
Corrosion (Odile Nedjaaï)