French painter, born in St Mandé. His date of birth is given differently in various sources, but he began painting at the end of the 1970s. His work is always abstract and is concerned not with personal expression but with the actual process of making the work. He is fond of saying ‘the brush paints’. Indeed his paintings often inspire curiosity about the process of their making, with paint which appears at once totally controlled and spontaneously flowing. Techniques include the use of several brushes tied together. In certain works in which multicoloured brushstrokes interweave like woven threads, he and a number of assistants produce the work in collaboration so that the brushes never have to leave the canvas. Further Reading Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, Bernard Frize: Hands on (2003)