Toros, 1988

Armand Avril is a self-taught painter and sculptor who lives and works in Catignac, France.

Avril is inspired by African art. His work is characterised by open-mindedness and spontaneity, and he prefers earthy colours. He works figuratively in the styles Art Brut and Primitivism. The artists representing Art Brut are seen as maladjusted and anti-social individuals, who cannot reconcile themselves with an imposed culture. They do not accept the concept of high and low art. Primitivism has a philosophical basis in which the return to spontaneity and originality is paramount and strives for the primitive in the sense of that which has not been corrupted by civilisation.

Until the mid-1960s, Armand Avril mainly painted, later he also made assemblages combining objects such as scrap metal, bottle caps and other abandoned objects.