Lamy, Marc

In 1998 and more extensively in 2000, Marc Lamy wrote an explanation of his drawings: ‘Sources symboliques de mes dessins’, in which he meticulously addressed the influence of his youth on his art. His parents opened a stained-glass studio and their life-mission was to revive medieval glass art. In doing so they adopted a monastic lifestyle of sobriety and discipline. Lamy therefore feels stigmatized. He mentions the excess of visual information, which led him to develop a hypersensitivity to images and sound. In the studio: castings, glass shapes and working processes in which grisaille, negative forms and transformation processes played a role. In the home: books and collections of curiosities, historically decorated furniture with various optical phenomena, bubbles and twists in glass, through torsion and mirroring. And above all two prominent heads: a hypnotic skull and a powerful maternal portrait. This was further enhanced by the mutilated cityscape of Lyon, marked by war damage. Lamy magnified and sublimated all this in his overexcited, child’s mind.

Although he initially seemed born to continue his family’s tradition in the creative sector, Marc started suffering from insomnia with the onset of adulthood. He had hallucinations, heard voices, became manic-depressive and eventually suffered a complete mental breakdown. Lamy discovered that drawing with an almost automatic hand – inspired by supernatural voices – created a hypnosis in which the images from his early childhood revealed themselves.

 

Education: Jesuit college; artschool.
Profession/occupation: numerous jobs in a hospital, restaurant, etc.
Start artwork: at around 50, when interned in psychiatric hospital.
Relevant info: interested in metaphysics; since 1988 voices in his head.

References: Lamy, Marc; Sources symboliques de mes dessins. Letter 4 March 2000 to Collection de l’art brut, Lausanne. Thevoz, Michel; Marc Lamy in: L’ART BRUT, Fascicule 20, Lausanne 2000.

Marc Lamy
1939 France -