Free Figuration

In 1981 in Paris, art critique Bernard Lamarche-Vadel presented the works of a group of young painters in an exhibit called “Finir en Beauté”. Ben, the painter, identified the event as the birth of a new movement, which he named “Free Figuration”. The new style is best described as spontaneously figurative. It is brightly colored, raw, and draws its inspiration from the popular culture, rock music, comics, etc. In the United States, during that same period, graffiti art can be seen as its counterpart. These artists mostly paint on unstretched, unframed canvasses, or they paint directly on sheets, cardboard, in the back of billboards they picked up in the streets or in the subway.
One famous example of the Free Figuration style, can be seen in the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat.