All posts by butterfly

La Rochelle (FR): Graffs on Tour(s) with the CMN

June 3, 2018 butterfly 1 Comment

The Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN) is France’s biggest cultural and tourism operator. Its mission is to preserve cultural heritage and provide public access to 100 national historical monuments throughout France.

After having archived and documented graffiti on the national monuments as traces of history and archeology for decades, and referenced graffiti on thirty historical monuments, the CMN has decided to focus its 2018 cultural season on historical graffiti with a series of exhibitions and events called “Sur les murs, histoire(s) de graffiti“ on nine of its national monuments curated by Laure Pressac .

From 31 March to 25 June 2018 the historical sites of La Rochelle Towers present “Graffs on Tour(s)” with a focus on historical graffiti as well as artistic interventions by contemporary artists. Over 600 graffiti have been recorded, engraved in the walls of the Rochelle Towers, as testimony of imprisoned sailors during the various wars.

Following a month residency, internationally renowned graffiti duo Lek & Sowat (covered) have created a series of contemporary installations in the Saint Nicolas Tower and the city of La Rochelle, which we will focus on in more details shortly.

To kick start the cultural season with the Quinzaine du Numerique (QZN), five artists including Philippe Boisnard (FR), Vincent Dubois (FR), Collectif Impact (FR), Julia Masvernat (AR) and Julia Suero (AR), invaded the Lantern Tower by creating a transmedia journey with digital installations, visual mapping, videos, and sound installations.

Through the ascending progression of the Lantern Tower, this transmedia path evokes the transition from figuration to abstraction as well as the transformation from analog material into digital material.

Upon entering the tower, visitors are given a booklet and at each stage of the journey, the public can discover more about the architecture of the building, historical graffiti and artistic installations and interpretations of the QZN.

On the second floor, Collectif Impact highlights the most important graffiti (depending on their quality, size and state of conservation) with visual mapping on the prison doors, while a life-size projection features testimonies of the past left by sailors, pirates and prisoners. A dark room reveals invisible graffiti using black UV light.

On the third floor, also nicknamed ‘dorm room’, graffiti are even more prolific. Through lighting effects, Vincent Dubois presents selected graffiti in a museum setting, with audio creations by Julia Suero for a full immersive experience.

A room with interactive games and books let you discover more about the history of graffiti.

The fifth floor features the first dungeon of the nineteenth century. Artistic installations by Julia Masvernat and Julia Suero invite the viewers into an oniric journey with ‘Magic Lanterns’ . Through a projection, shadows reminiscent of historical graffiti evolve on the walls of the room.

For many years the Lantern Tower was a place of confinement, and graffiti are traces left by these isolated and immured people. Philippe Boisnard ‘s installation is a 270 ° mapping on the sixth floor of the Lantern Tower, which poetically and graphically opens horizons through these walls. Each stone has been visually mapped and transformed into a new skyline, a distant desert, burning fire, depth underwater. Through computer generated images, the prison walls disintegrate and show the viewers how imagination can go beyond confinement.

Stay tuned as we continue our visit of the CMN Cultural season
“Sur les Murs, Histoire(s) de Graffiti”.

Graffs on Tour(s)

Until 25 June
Saint Nicolas Tower
Lantern Tower
La Rochelle

Paris

Paris: BLO – ‘Anywhere, Out of this mind’

June 2, 2018 butterfly

Berlin based artist BLO, from the Da Mental Vaporz crew, is currently showing a new exhibition entitled Anywhere, Out Of This Mind at Galerie 42b in Paris.

The new body of work features a series of oniric painted assemblages with a mix of grayscale abstract shapes and surrealist female portraits. The figurative intertwines with the abstraction of lines and textures. Painted figurative cut outs inspired by found contemporary images are pieced together with energetic abstract brushstrokes. Playing with textures, focus and blur, light and shadows, it creates a dialogue between the real and subconscious.

A seductive choreography is set up by a series of assemblages, contrast and accumulation, layering of paint, erosion of textures and images. A dialogue is established between actions and reactions. Energetic abstract brushstrokes recall the gesture of the tag which blends with finesse and elegance onto the female body while silk and drapes bring elegance, lightness and sensuality to the female figures. Mastering anatomy and pose with great detail, the cut out paintings bring our focus on hands, legs, a mouth while the woman’s face remains blurred, as to transport us into a nostalgic and dreamlike world.

We asked BLO a few questions to find out more.

How long have you been preparing for this show?

BLO: After a year experimenting with abstraction, and following my artistic residency in Perpignan (FR) in November/December 2017, I decided to return my focus to figurative painting while exploring fragmented compositions. So, I have been preparing for my current show for the past five months.

What is the inspiration behind the exhibition title Anywhere, Out Of This Mind?

BLO: The title of the exhibition is a reference to a poem by Baudelaire, Anywhere Out Of This World, with the last world being replaced by ‘mind’, as an invitation into the subconscious world.

What are your sources of inspiration and creative process?

BLO: Based on contemporary photography and textures I have observed in the urban environment, I created preparatory collages on paper that served as first sketches for my canvasses and then let my inspiration flow on canvas until I am satisfied with the composition.

What materials did you use?

BLO: For the first time, I have used very little spray paint. I focused on acrylic, oil paint, using pigments, varnish, and different types of inks and enamels to create a variety of textures on canvas.

Some of your artworks are purely in black and white while others are colourful. Can you tell us more?

BLO: After the past two years, I wanted to create grayscale paintings again as a tribute to drawings, specially ink drawings, with a focus on textures.

Photo credit: Butterfly Art News, Eli Cornejo, Nicolas Giquel.

BLO
Anywhere, out of this world
Until 16 June 2018
Galerie 42B, Paris

Paris, Shows

Paris: Oli Epp ‘Epiphanies’

May 28, 2018 butterfly

Semiose Galerie in Paris is currently showing ‘Epiphanies‘, a solo exhibition by British artist Oli Epp. Born in 1994, Oli Epp is a recent graduate of the City & Guilds of London Art School and has taken the art world by storm. Despite his young age, Oli Epp has already taken part in a series of exhibitions from Australia, Denmark, the US and Spain and has a huge following on social media.

His body of work are inspired by his everyday experiences and observations. Often autobiographical, they share situations that involve the artist and his encounters with a touch of humour.

Using flatness and realism, simplified characters are portrayed with oversized heads, with an absence of facial features, self-absorbed in their post digital age with a focus on their branded items and communication pieces. Oli Epp’s paintings are a visual play between real and digital lives and a satirical representation of human interactions in a world of consumerism and communication.

Oli Epp – Epiphanies
Semiose Galerie
Until 6 June 2018
34 rue Chapon
75003 Paris

Interviews/ Studio visits

Interview: Zoer (FR)

May 24, 2018 butterfly

We wanted to find out more about French artist Frederic Battle aka Zoer, as he painted a mural together with Velvet at the Crystal Ship Festival in Ostende.

He accepted to answer a few questions:

Can you tell us more about your background?

Graduated from an industrial design school, I have been drawing since I know how to hold a pencil. Kid, I used to break my car toys myself to create new forms then draw car crashes or trafic jam. I started to write by scratching, tagging with a maker without any idea of what was happening then my best friend came and said “hey, why don’t you try to make some drawing on walls” and I start to write ZOER. Where I come from, at that time they were no so much graffity for this reason my letter was quickly combined to figurative elements inspired by comics, architecture and automobile with my drawing style. Then, I moved to Paris and met Velvet (Kryo) and get a stronger interest in graffity. In 2011, the association “Sans pression” from Nantes invited me to take part of “Voyage à Nantes” first edition. This invitation was the starting point of painting murals.

What / who are your sources of inspirations?

Comics, architecture and automobile.
Gerard Richter and Ron van der Ende
Sonic PNC
Electronic music which is really important for me, the first musical emotions, I’ve felt was with Daft Punk ep ” Musique” in 1993. Laurent Garnier is certainly the artist I listen the most.

You are a multidisciplinary artist, so what is your creative process and your preferred medium?

Painting is my favorite medium but I like challenge so I can not stop to explore and explore by combining different technics, mediums and styles.
Object are the key element of my creating process, I focus on it, try to extract the abstract part of it to make growing up a subject from realistic object but not used in a realistic way.

Can you tell us more about your artworks and how you would define your style? You seem to incorporate a lot of vehicules /cars in your artworks. Is there a specific meaning behind it?

My style is definitely figurative, generally in my painting, the chaos of the pictured scene is paradoxically balanced by the accurate depiction of the objects.
Automobile is the most complicated invention of the XX century in its technological contraints as much its social impacts. Whether it’s the subject or the support, cars, from a toy to an industrial shape, embodies the culture, aspirations and desires of succeeding generations. I tried to express this ideas in my painting.

How did you end up with Kaikaikiki and Takashi Murakami?
Can you tell us about your experience in Japan?

I was in a middle of the Mercantour (French Alpes) when I received this email from Takashi Murakami saying “I love you work, I would like to make an exhibition”. Few months after, I was in Tokyo.
Work with Kaikai Kiki gallery is a great opportunity, really inspiring. It is an incredible possibility of creation. Japan is mesmerizing

You are doing a collaboration with DrColors and Velvet for the Crystal Ship? Can you tell us more?
We were invited with Velvet to paint this mural and Dr Colors, old friend, came very nicely to give us a hand.
I met Velvet at design school we paint and make most of the projects together, we have created DIE_CAST_STUDIO.

What are your next projects as well?
My opening of my next show, La Forme, will be on April 7th at SC Gallery in Bilbao. Then I will go to Rabat / Morocco for a mural and in Saint-Gervais les Bains for the second edition of 2KM3, an innovative cultural project started last year, 11 artists was invited to paint an interior car park.

Photos courtesy of the artist

Zoer
More on http://www.zoerism.com

Paris, Shows

Paris: D*Face – ‘Fornever’

May 17, 2018 butterfly

After painting a large new mural Turn Coat (covered) in the 13th District of Paris, D*Face unveiled his first solo show in France at Galerie Itinerrance. Entitled ~~FORNEVER~~, the exhibition presented canvasses, sculptures, installations, HPMs, prints, and more. The British artist also experimented with a new medium – ‘Memory Trays’ – assemblages of found objects to bring a narrative dimension to his portraits. Thus, his subjects are plunged into the past as if they were nothing but an accumulation of memories, a discrete stencil is hidden inside a old novel, the faded picture of a pin-up comes out of a small pocket, or a key floats inside a glass bottle. The new imagery deals with how nothing is forever, with the old replaced with the new and the tensions that come with it.

The first wall of the showing presented a ‘blue period’ with a multitude of formats from sculptures, such as ‘Riot Bottles’ and ‘Memory Trays’. This section featured sad characters, with an omnipresent blue colour palette, bringing out melancholy and the souvenir of lost time.

Opposite these lonely characters, a series of colourful canvasses focused on love relationships through different stages, and also echoed some of D’s monumental murals and album cover for the music band Blink-182. The themes of duality, love and violence appeared throughout the exhibition, from the Coke bottles transformed into Riot motolov cocktails or rose vases, to the rusted and painted saws featuring the male and female gaze.

To describe the exhibition, D*Face mentions – ”From London to Los Angeles, Tokyo to Paris, I’ve lived and worked in cities my entire life, and if there’s one thing that all have had in common, it’s a tension between the old and the new. Progress seems inevitable, yet history and tradition remain treasured commodities – hard to let go. Likewise, artists throughout history, including myself, have faced the same obstacle – how do we evolve without abandoning what distinguished us in the first place? As the rate of change increases exponentially, so too does the value of society’s collective memory, along with the few relics which remain to uphold the past. It was my ambition with the Fornever show to set past and future in dialogue with one another.
To initiate this project, I chose to revisit the image of the Riot Coke Bottle, but this time as an imitation of the iconic petrol bomb – the poor man’s grenade. A familiar yet daunting object, it’s been used to spark the fire of countless revolutions throughout history, so for me it was an irresistible symbol for change – an incineration of the old in sight of the new. What remains then are vestiges of the past, salvaged, repurposed and marvellously outdated, they remind us that no matter how hard we may fight the wheel of change, nothing can last forever – there is only Fornever.”