Page 8 - Catalogue-JLEmond

Nous ne sommes pas au monde
A curtain of motifs resembling netting occupies the visual field in these paintings. Such curtains materialize out of patterns that have been sculpted and notched into wood, then stamped onto the surface of the painting by the artist.
At once visible and invisible, motifs proliferate and dissolve. Brightly coloured accents emerge from the shadows, and snag on various rough edges of motifs, details, pieces of clothing, bits of fabric, hands and on peripheral areas of the painting. Through these interlacing layers, bald-headed characters swim in greyness. A strange crystal-like light brilliantly illuminates their emerging contours, and they appear as if they’ve been captured in the beam of light of an imaginary projector.
Merging and blending into the grating that imprisons them, the ghost-like silhouettes created by this type of lighting simultaneously accentuate the flatness of the painting surface. The characters seem to be floating, evolving in an empty space. Perhaps in a familiar everyday one? Or perhaps in a void?
These bodies circulate with fanciful clarity. They are unclear human figures who can only be defined by their tendency to be undefined. At times, birds fly above them in a flapping of wings and feathers. Some figures appear to be cut apart, as if they have been hit by an explosion that has severed and cut them into rectilinear strips.
Where are we? Do these paintings transport us into a science fiction universe? The territory in which they tread seems at once nearby and familiar, but also secretive and inaccessible. Strangeness prevails.
The exhibition, Nous ne sommes pas au monde, adopts the name of one of the paintings in this recent group of fifteen works. The title is also a quote from Arthur Rimbaud, taken from a letter written by Rimbaud’s sister, Isabelle, to his mother, in 1891, which describes the last days of his life, following his return from Africa.