What's up since Robert Valley 's incredible drawing ? Well, the french Artist Dominique Louis has just send me the marvellous pastel he exclusively done in the Sketchtravel's Sketchbook a few weeks ago. Inspired by his trips all over the globe, Dominique offers us his new vision : a mix between El Matador beach at Malibu and Indian atmosphere. He called his painting (in french) : "Inde Oceane". Because Dominique Louis is a rare artist online and in libraries, here is his official bio :
Dominique Louis is a an Art Director and Photographer working for the international movie and Animation industry . He is a very passionate, creative artist and painter who brings his unique dramatic style of lighting and color to the design of feature films such as Disney-Pixar 's "Ratatouille“, "Monsters .Inc" , "Finding Nemo " , "Lifted " and WB 's "The Iron Giant" .
Born and raised in Burgundy, France, he has from an early age, shown a very creative nature. Generally influenced by Disney magical films and Hollywood Classics, Dominique orientated his studies towards Fine Arts and Animation. After graduating from CFT Gobelins as Character Animator, he realized his true passion was actually Movie Sets and Lighting Design .
In 1991, he started his career as an Assistant Art Director in London working for a variety of studios such as Passion Pictures . The following year he returned to Paris. For a period of 3 years he shared his time between the art direction of animated feature films projects and working for Walt Disney as a background artist on "The Goofy Movie ".
In 1995 , he moved to California to join Warner Brothers Feature Animations as a Visual Concept Artist. Dominique was involved in numerous projects such as " The Iron Giant" His vibrant pastel paintings were key elements in the promotion of a number of films including a poster for the magazine "Variety ". In 1997 he left Warner Brothers to become involved in the concept designs for Universal Studios Theme Park projects .
In 1998 , he was thrilled to join Pixar, being offered the opportunity to art direct Pixar’s 3rd Feature film "Monsters Inc" directed by Pete Docter. Through the painting of a much acclaimed collection of pastel paintings,Dominique brought his unique sense of lighting to the film, from the early art concepts to the final lighting designs of the individual sequences and scenes of the film. His work is featured in "the Art of Monsters Inc ", a book published after the film was released, exhibiting the art behind the movie.
Dominique grew up in the tradition of French cuisine, his grandfather being a chef for the Rothschild family. In 2001 he felt very honored to do the art direction of the film "Ratatouille " which takes place in the centre of French gastronomy in his favorite city Paris .
In parallel to his passion as a creative artist and painter Dominique has developed a vivid interest in photography and digital image processing. He decides to use the digital medium for his production paintings to define the more realistic lighting style of "Ratatouille " . His experience at Disney-Pixar also included the design of other films such as "Finding Nemo","Boundin" and "Lifted" as well as some stage design for a " Monsters Inc " ride in Disney World, Florida . He also enjoyed the wonderful experience of performing the voice of " Bomb Voyage " in for the film "The Incredibles " .
In 2006 he left Disney-Pixar to broaden his artistic experience. He was interested to have the opportunity to use his art for some thing completely different when at the beginning of this year Francis Coppola assigned him to undertake the design of 2 original labels for the Rosso & Bianco Wines from his newly acquired "Rosso & Bianco Winery ".
More recently, he has provided his art for 2 new projects in development at Aardman studios ,UK .
Dominique’s paintings have been sold as limited edition prints and at numerous different auctions including Christies, the Red Cross etc. in 2005 his paintings were featured at New York Museum Of Modern Art in the exhibition " Pixar: 20 Years of Animation " .
His art has recently been broadly featured in the book "The Art of Ratatouille ".
