Michel Costiou, an artist from the Pyrenees, grew up in Toulouse where he studied at the Beaux-Arts before joining the ENSBA in Paris, then the Atelier Supérieur de Peinture Chapelain Midy and the Ecole Estienne in the Bauhaus movement training section. Through his encounters, he discovers the fascinating world of dance and opera, where he creates a multitude of sketches live during performances. Dancers came to pose in his studio to finance their dance classes.

Michel then founded the very first movement drawing workshop with musicians, dancers, acrobats and mimes at the Académie d'Art Roederer, Place des Vosges in Paris, a spontaneous experimentation of rhythms and postures which has since been practiced in all art schools.

From the 1970s onwards, Michel Costiou positioned himself as an ambassador for Lefranc Bourgeois: he experimented with so-called "modern" paints and presented them to the general public as a demonstrator. The artist is not content with exposing the properties and instructions of the product, he appropriates it and diverts it with the joyful impertinence that is characteristic of him, testing the supports and mixtures. This was a period of great innovation in the Fine Arts market: painting on fabric, polycloth, polyflashe, all new products that Michel Costiou tested with extravagance and amusement.

Visitors can attend spectacular demonstrations in the biggest Parisian shops: La Samaritaine, Galeries Lafayette, BHV, ... Michel Costiou is a pioneer of modern painting and its methods of use. Flashe paint is one of the first acrylics he used: it meets his need for agility and allows for speed in spontaneous application movements.

Nan-King Indian ink from Lefranc Bourgeois is composed of an intense black pigment. It is opaque, indelible and fluid and offers excellent durability. It is used by modern artists in many fields such as illustration, figurative, sketches, abstraction, street art, ink art, alone or in mixed techniques as Michel Costiou also experiments.

Ink drawings, mixed techniques on stone paper, paintings on canvas, engravings on zinc, decorative panels, lamps... Michel Costiou diverts the uses of ink according to his inspiration and the supports.

Indeed, the properties of ink allow it to be applied to all rigid, flexible, absorbent and non-absorbent supports: paper, rhodoid, cardboard, wood, plaster, glass, plastic, clay, earth, salt dough, painted paper, fabric, tracing paper, modelling clay, metal, polystyrene.