As a child Rene de Loffre immigrated to the United States from Normandy, France. His family soon moved to Los Angeles where he still resides. Retired from thirty-five years as a public-school educator, he is now a full time artist working from his home studio in the Hollywood Hills and often writes about artists and exhibitions. He holds a B.A. in fine arts and an M.A. in art history. He has also studied at Chouinard, Art Center School of Design,the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art, and with the artist Tom Wudl. During the 1980’s, de Loffre left studio work for fine art photography. By 2003 he was making computer manipulated photo images and in 2004 he returned to painting. De Loffre is currently a member of Gallery 825 (LA Art Association), the Blankfort/Clothier Artist Group, and served as a member of LA Artcore’s Board of Directors from 2003 to 2005. For the past several years de Loffre has been an art critic on his blog “The de Loffre Post” and is now heavily involved in creating sculpture that utilizes bronze and wood.
Biography
Statement
My sculpture of heads and torsos incorporates a mix of realism and abstraction consisting of wood, clay, stone, bronze, and/or steel, which are either left in their natural state, manipulated, or both. Most of the works are mounted on bases, which are integral parts of the pieces. For me, the creation of the human figure in sculptural form is a comfortable and irresistible impulse. As sculptor Stephen De Staebler put it, “The human figure is the most loaded of all forms because we live in one.”
My art is motivated by curiosity to discover what’s on the other side of mountains, that is, the visual results of one’s creations over time that could not have been predicted. It’s also my attempt to create an existential reconciliation with uncertainty and the apparent insignificance of mankind. The viewer will gaze on pieces of solidity that symbolize immortality, but understand that the message signifies the ultimate and inevitable decay towards an Ozymandias reality, a memento mori.