Aries, Francois
Francois Aries
Francois Aries was born in Paris in 1957, and grew up largely in Nantes, a major provincial town in the West of France.
His initial exposure to abstract art came through his grandmother, who had a small collection of Modern Art and frequently took him along to galleries of contemporary works. After he left school, he spent some time working as a photographer’s assistant in Paris. At the age of 21, he moved to the French Caribbean island of St. Barts, where he became a furniture maker.
Five years later, Francois life’s journey took him to Costa Rica, where he spent a couple of years, making furniture and enjoying an ascetic lifestyle on an orange and coffee plantation.
After he married a New Zealander in late 1986, they moved to the Hawkes Bay where he combined raising two sons and crafting furniture pieces. During those years, he participated in a number of craft exhibitions, which culminated in a ‘duo’ exhibition in Hastings in 1992. His furniture had a distinct emphasis on design and was built with care. A gradual movement across to the discipline of design lead him to becoming a part-time tutor in product design, in the arts department of the Eastern Institute of Technology (Hawkes Bay).
In 2002, Francois returned to formal studies gaining a Bachelor in Visual Arts from EIT, followed the next year by a Post Graduate Diploma in Fine Arts from Elam in Auckland.
He has been painting nearly full time since then with his work being shown in Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Hawkes Bay. He resides in Hawkes Bay.
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