benevolent_shadows, digital prints, each 100x40cm

 OMBRES BIENVEILLANTES, Nostalgie.

Ce ne sont pas images séduisantes, ce ne sont pas des images pour plaire. Il n’y a pas, non plus, d’attirance pour le sombre.

Simplement, peut-être, la beauté, l’imaginaire qui sont ceux de la ville, des villes, de l’urbain. Les images “de base” ont été faites à Hong Kong, à un moment où on ne voyageait plus, à un moment où les masques étaient partout. Et il faisait aussi très chaud.

Il y a des humains, comme des ombres bienveillantes, que d’autres humains éclairent.

Il y a aussi le désir de se débarrasser de ces “ego” multiples, de ces tourments internes, de ces états d’âmes... ou de cette sociologie de bazars...

On trouvera tout ça un peu austère, un peu froid et distancié même. Des images qui ne sont pas “à consommer”.... peut-être les selfies m’ont-ils finalement dérangé ... et les singeries de l’art contemporain aussi... Je pense que c’est juste à propos de mémoire et d’identité.

Comme pour échapper au “pathos” souvent larmoyant de la photographie… La mémoire est ici un peu figée, rétrécie, prisonnière de quelques flash de couleurs et de formes. La mémoire toujours est une re-construction à posteriori qui peut se contenter de l’essentiel.

La mémoire; une question de Temps et de Territoires. 

Francois BANCON [aout 2020]

Que serions nous sans le secours de ce qui n’existe pas? [Paul Valery].

the D_Files, Art residence, TNT Contemporary-Shenzhen Sept-Dec 2020.

the D_Files #1, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #2, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #3, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #4, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #5, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #6, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #7, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #8, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #9, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #10, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #11, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #12, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #13, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #14, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files #15, Nostalgia [Dafen], 85x65cm

the D_Files, 25 Dafen Artists portraits, 150x150cm

the D_Files, Palettes [Dafen], 110x50cm

the D_Files, Parenthesis #1, 150x150cm

 

Figures_Serie, 12 signed digital prints, each 100x50cm

Figures_Série

Noir et Blanc, Noir surtout. Le noir ne se laisse pas manipuler, le noir sait ce qu’il veut, il en veut à l’image entière, il la domine, l’envahit, l’étreint, et tente de lui faire cracher son histoire. Pour maitriser ce noir il ne fallait surtout pas d’ histoire. Seulement celle du noir qui n’a rien à voir avec la tristesse ou la perte. Et ce titre_label qui justement tient toute velléité d’histoire en respect. Un peu doré comme par accident, à peine dans l’image, mais qui trie, signale justement que c’est une image, une image banale prise dans les griffes du noir. 

figures_serie

Black and White, especially Black. The black cannot be manipulated, the black knows what he wants, he wants the whole image, he dominates it, invades it, embraces it, and tries to make it spit out his story. To master this black you really didn't need a story. Only that of the black who has nothing to do with sadness or loss. And this title_label which precisely keeps any hint of history at bay. A little golden as if by accident, barely in the picture, but sorting, rightly signals that it is an image, an ordinary image caught in the claws of black.

lonely_thoughts, 8 digital prints photographs, each 110x50cm

lonely thoughts

Perhaps a confining effect, a certain withdrawal into oneself ... perhaps a moment of introspection ... what remains of hesitant memories like a vaporous mixture, glimpses of images, uncertain moments ... but which obsess.

And when thoughts get lost, don't get attached anywhere, hang on to simple shapes that help to see clearly. From simple to complex, from black and white to color, there is always an isolation in the image, a dissatisfaction too.

It’s like a focal point that you cannot take your eyes off.

territory_loneliness_serie, 5 digital paintings, each 120x85cm

• Territory_Loneliness_serie [territoire_solitude]

• This series is about a "lack", a presence however in the absence of the “figure".

• In these times of more or less forced isolation, of more or less marked "social distancing" ... the central idea of ​​putting the face into perspective has been very affected, to the point that it is an indistinct form, a little disturbing which became the symbol of these faces. These faces idealized as specters and whose gaping hole of absence reveals both the unfathomable mystery and the deep banality. 

• Abstract art trivialized until it has lost any capacity for questioning is most often only used to trace an art history somewhat dated in museums or to decorate the walls of bourgeois salons, at best the halls of reception of luxury buildings… No longer disturbing any established order, abstract art has often become an inert consensual object.

• Unable to use the photo to "figure" and put it in perspective, I had to avoid the trap of ease of abstraction ... the pixels (23345 in each of these images), a formidable and sometimes lethal weapon here become the construction tool bearing shapes and colors. Drawn and colored the old fashioned way by hand, these pixels enhance digital art. The bourgeois and the conservatives do not like digital art either on a screen where it serves as a technological alibi as an indication of a somewhat outmoded modernity ... and which justly screened… Hand-made designed pixels when our life run the risk to be controlled by ubiquitous sensors and sophisticated algorithms might be a way to claim the absolute priority of “the human”.

• 4 digital paintings therefore for this series, plus one that shows the process ... Each in 120x85cm format, size is important here, because of the pixels which, on the contrary of »absence" are naturally invisible.