Florent Bordinat

“During my high school years, I discovered, through my classmates, a practice called urbex. It involves exploring abandoned places in order to experience and feel things that are uncommon in our everyday lives. My classmates and I—this is exactly what we enjoyed! We wanted to be afraid, to feel in danger, confronted with the world of esotericism and imagination. We wanted to discover worlds neglected by society, like apocalyptic sets from action films or video games. Because above all, these places bear witness to time passing—slipping through our fingers without our being able to hold it back.
In harmony with the present, we visited these disused spaces, sometimes transformed into impressive ruins over which nature was reclaiming its rights. These places come from the past; they speak of the future and the end of our humanity! They are a warning for our time!
In 2019, I entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Pau. I spent a great deal of time searching for an artistic voice that suited me. It was in the middle of my second year that the idea came to me to repaint photographs of abandoned places. I rediscovered photographs I had taken during my high school years. I then had fun repainting them, and it was a revelation for me. I was making the sets and places my own far more than if I had exhibited the photographs. I admired the contrasts that chiaroscuro could create. I was fascinated by the whitish light that entered the spaces through the windows or through the decaying roofs. I greatly enjoyed the connection to Flemish and Baroque painting. The window and checkerboard tile motifs often recurred in my paintings. But what also mattered to me was the site’s history, and then the question of its purpose. I must admit that disused industrial factories met my expectations.
During my Master’s at the École des Beaux-Arts in Tours, I decided to work on representing an asbestos factory in Haute-Corse. For a very long time, these modernist buildings, half in ruins, had held my attention. During my childhood, I had driven past them many times with my parents. Faced with these gigantic walls, these columns, and these vaults blackened by wear, I felt inexplicable sensations! Like an infinite melancholy, mixed with a great tragedy.
During the summer of 2022, I went back there to take photographs. As I came to know these places, I understood that my sensations were not insignificant! There had indeed been a terrible tragedy in this disused factory. I did not yet know that in 1964 it was the largest asbestos factory in France and Europe. Many workers were employed there.
Through my paintings, I wish to speak of this terrible, little-known story, sometimes even forgotten. A story that Corsican workers called—and still call today—”the white hell.””

Florent Bordinat

2025
Le 59 Rivoli – Paris
Salon des artistes français – Grand Palais – Paris (Bronze Medal, A. Eschbach Prize 2025)

2024
Chapelle de la Persévérance – Pau
Tarbes Biennial
Estanqu’Arts – Ici ou l’Art – Vieux-Boucau
Galerie des Corsaires – Bayonne
Promenade artistique de Molineuf
Art Shopping Salon – Carrousel du Louvre – Paris
Galerie l’Oeil du Prince – Biarritz
Galerie Sabaia – Oloron Sainte-Marie

2023
Galerie Hemon – Pau
Town Hall – Lons
Estanqu’Arts – Ici ou l’Art – Moliets-et-Maa (People’s Choice Award)
Art et lettres de France – Bordeaux
Art et lettres de France – Hourtin
Beaux-Arts – Tours
Galerie Insolitude – Pau
Exhibition at Château Jolys

2022
Carrefour des Arts – Haras de Gelos
12th edition of Festiv’Arts – Arros-Nay
Exhibition at Studio Arte Dance – Pau

2019
Exhibition at Château de Franqueville
Exhibition at La Mesclanha – Aressy

2017
Exhibition at Hôtel du Béarn – Soumoulou

2013
Opening of the Espace des Arts in Pau (Musée des Beaux-Arts and École supérieure d’art et de design des Pyrénées)