Combas is the main founder of the French Figuration Libre movement that flourished in the 1980's. His good friend Di Rosa was also a member. Figuration Libre artists subverted the noble status of Minimalism and Conceptualism, and created an important chapter in the history of contemporary art with twisted and rough brushworks as well as avant-garde satirical cartoons. Compared to those of the same generation from the late 1970s to the 1980s who indulged in crazy decadence and Bacchus pleasure, the artists on both sides of the Atlantic began in-depth explorations of tradition, history, freedom and gender issues, giving birth to the Figuration Libre and other emerging styles beginning with the name "New" in various countries.

In the U.S., there was a group of artists who captured history with New Image Painting or Bad Painting, such as the street or metro graffiti of Jean-Michel Basquiat or Keith Haring. In England, there was a New Painting style led by Christopher Le Brun. In Germany, there was the Neo-Expressionism style or the Les Nouveaux Fauves represented by Georg Baselitz, Anselm Kiefer, Jörg Immendorff, and A. R. Penck. For the Italian Transavangurdia style, outstanding representative artists include the so-called three C artists, Sandro Chia, Francesco Clemente, and Enzo Cucchi. As a continuation of Dadaism, these new styles were generally referred to by critics as the "bad paintings", or collectively known as the German name "Neo-expressionism". The style expanded to become part of the classification of the "avant-garde art", which has continued its influence to the current moment in the 21st century.

Headed by Combas, the French Figuration Libre or Nouvelle Figuration Libre stood out in this avant-garde trend. In the paintings by Combas and his fellow artists, strong political tendency was absent as they favored pure and free-style paintings. They also loved rock and punk music, and had a strong interest in historical heroic figures, native African art, magnificent Arabic pop art, and themes with violence and eroticism. Just as Picasso also returned to classical art in the 1960s, Combas and friends also presented themselves with reproductions of classical nostalgic and narrative innovation in painting.