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Yvaral

(French, 1934-2002)

Yvaral, born Jean Pierre Vasarely in Paris in 1934, was the son of the highly acclaimed Kinetic artist Victor Vasarely. Although Yvaral's family name was Vasarely, during his life he came to be known as Yvaral.

Yvaral studied graphic art and publicity at the Ecole des Arts Appliqu (School of Applied Art) in Paris. There, he began experimenting with geometrical abstract art and made his first completed works with the movement in 1955. In 1960 he co-founded Le Group de Recherche d'Art Visuel with Le Parc, Morellet, Sobrino with which he exhibited throughout the world until 1968.

Yvaral held his first one-man exhibition at the Howard Wise Gallery, New York in 1966. By the end of the 1960s he was making many paintings and screenprints with vigorous colour interactions and geometrical compositions. His work focused on producing optical acceleration effects that suggested movement, projection and recession. He aimed to create a visual language based on simple codifiable and programmed elements. Through his search for a concise geometric digital vocabulary, he addressed our notions of space and time through the displacement of the spectator.

Yvaral died in Paris in 2002 leaving behind a large collection of his digitised, kinetic paintings which pay homage to his search for a language of geometric simplicity.

Yvaral