Bruno Arts1 is a self-taught Franco-Swiss artist born in 1964 in Annecy (Haute-Savoie). He is a descendant of the Lords of Menthon and the grandson of Couttet Champion (Alfred Couttet | 1889-1974), pioneer of skiing, legend of mountaineering and first champion of France (civilian) in skiing in 1909 at the age of twenty ( the very first French champion in 1908 was a soldier), a title he won twice more in 1913 and then in 1914. In 1909, he also set the Chamonix / Mont-Blanc summit / Chamonix speed record in less than thirteen hours. Record that was not beaten until sixty years later ! Guide to more than forty premieres, Couttet Champion created the first free ski school for children in Chamonix. This veritable nursery of ski instructors and champions such as Régis Charlet or James Couttet, is today considered to be the matrix of the French Ski Schools which were created a few years later by Léo Lagrange, then Minister of Sports. He also founded the Chamonix climbing school at the Rocher des Gaillands, a wall-school which has seen generations of aspiring Haute-Montagne guides.
Since the age of twelve, Bruno Arts has expressed himself through drawing. It was at this age that he produced his first comic strips based on characters from Gotlib and Frankin.
At thirteen, he played his first guitar chords on the song Sacrée Bouteille by Graeme Allwright thanks to Paul Colombo, his fourth-grade English teacher at Balmettes College (Annecy), who was passionate about the songs of Dylan, Graeme Allwright, Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel,… teaches the texts (Blowin’ in the wind, My Lady d’Arbanville, The sound of silence,…) during his lessons while accompanying himself on the guitar. Faced with the enthusiasm of his students, he created a small guitar club within the college grounds. Bruno will go there and will diligently follow the teachings of his guitarist English teacher.
Gisèle Feydel, his second French teacher at the Gabriel Fauré high school (Annecy), passed on a taste for poetry to him. This is how, at the age of sixteen, he wrote his first poems. Some will be published in 1994 in his first collection entitled SANS TITRE (Arthur’R éditions).
At seventeen, he opened up to new disciplines: painting, sculpture, photography.
In 2005 and 2007, he wrote, directed and performed two shows of poetry, music and song:La vie d’un enfant de la Terre (with William Garcin | solo violinist) and L'enfant de la Terre et l'Amour (avec Pascal Gallet | solo pianist) and thus took his first steps on stage.
In 2012, with Edouard Guêt, he co-founded the group √4 | www.racinede4.com, and co-signed the music for Sugar Bonbon, a first album of mixed songs recorded at the end of 2011 (Afrorock | Reggae | Rock | World music). Bruno is the group's lead guitarist and his guitars mix their Anglo-American Rock/Blues and Reggae accents, in the colours of the rhythms and melodies of West Africa that Édouard brings with the good humour of his guitar, and carries with his black voice that sounds like a tribute to his glorious elders. Upon its release, the album received a real success of esteem and was reviewed by the French, Belgian and Ivorian press which unanimously gave it a very good review. The album was notably selected by Rock&Folkmagazine (N° 538 - June 2012) among sixty-two new releases on the indie circuit, in order to appear in its Quality France section. But since no one is a prophet in his country, it is in the United States, Canada and Australia that Sugar Bonbon records hundreds of thousands of plays; and the enthusiastic and admiring testimonies of fans fill the pages of the group's guestbook accessible via its website.
Thus, after eleven collections of poems, a novel, a comic strip, numerous painting exhibitions in France and abroad (United States, China, Germany, England, etc.), you hold this book-album in your hands. including the twelfth collection of poems by Bruno Arts, as well as the first musical opus of his group L.O.
Biographie complète ici.
Bruno Arts (with its associated graphic elements) is a registered trademark of Bruno Couttet since 1994.
