Thomas
Labarthe

Thomas Labarthe, also known as Toma-L, is a French artist born in 1975.

It was at the Pompidou Centre in October 2001 that Thomas Labarthe first discovered the work of Jean Dubuffet. The retrospective exhibition was, in his words, a “veritable electroshock,” a profound encounter that triggered his own artistic journey. Three months later, his first canvas, Mala Bestia, emerged. Like André Breton and Joan Miró before him, Thomas threw himself into a creative flurry, with exhibitions following in Paris, Nantes, and Tours. In 2006, he presented Figures Libres at the Centre Altercultura in Barcelona.

Over the years, Toma-L’s work became increasingly structured and defined as he discovered the formats, volumes, forms, and colors best suited to expressing his artistic vision. His time living in Spain had a significant influence on his practice, with the colors and intensity of the South becoming recurring elements throughout his work.

While his work can evoke Joan Miró, Jean Dubuffet, or Jean-Michel Basquiat, Toma-L has developed a language distinctly his own. He paints with his stomach, his heart, as if fulfilling an instinctive need. He paints freely. His work exists at the margins of multiple artistic concepts, allowing him to liberate himself from reflection and concentrate instead on the act of painting itself. This emphasis on marks, lines, motifs, and gesture places his practice within a territory that intersects with Lyrical Abstraction, Free Figuration, Abstract Expressionism, and Art Brut.

This movement toward action rather than predetermined meaning produces lines and forms under tension, emerging from instinct and gradually developing their own stories. Gesture is intimately connected to technique, while motifs arise organically from the possibilities offered by different procedures and materials.

In 2009, Thomas met Sébastien Fritsch, who would soon become his agent. Together, they developed a series of exhibitions and creative projects throughout the South of France. His artistic energy soon attracted a broader creative community, leading to collaborations with filmmakers, photographers, authors, graphic designers, dancers, and set designers.

The following decade became a particularly prolific period. His powerful graphic language received increasing recognition from the artistic community, with exhibitions and projects extending to Barcelona, Brussels, and Paris, including Galerie W Landau and Halle Saint Pierre.

Never afraid to expose his practice to new artistic challenges, Toma-L has continually pushed his work beyond the traditional boundaries of painting. His projects have included directing a choreographic work for Marseille-Provence 2013 at the Ballet d’Europe; working behind closed doors on the art book Vas-y, winner of the Fedrigoni Top Award 2013 in Parma, Italy; creating a multimedia installation at the Gaîté Lyrique in Paris; and developing a unique digital and ceramic fresco in collaboration with the Centre National de Céramique d’Art Sidi Kacem Jelizi, commissioned by the Institut Français in Tunis.

Today, this multidisciplinary approach remains an important extension of his practice. Toma-L continually reinvents his movements, techniques, and visual vocabulary, projecting his universe beyond the canvas and into the body, choreography, moving image, publishing, and installation. This constant experimentation reflects the same instinctive freedom that has defined his painting from the beginning.