Frédéric Messager

ERASING LANDSCAPE

5-20 August 2023

Introduction by the artist

The gestures that shaped my artistic language were marked by overlaps and erasures: I applied colors to a surface, then removed them before adding new ones. The superpositions multiplied, revealing a "geology" of the painting. Over the years, the idea of the landscape has imposed itself in my practice. Beyond stylistic considerations, my work has explored various paths, ranging from the creation of volumes to creations on paper. These graphic explorations are sometimes at the border of the definition of the drawing or of what a landscape can be.

The title of the exhibition "Erasing landscape", evokes the technique used in all the art pieces produced during the residency and opens up a reading of the possibilities. It can be seen as a metaphor for oblivion, ecological concerns, or the impossibility of representing what is in perpetual motion, in the murmur of foliage or in the reflections of light on the surface of water.

This set of drawings, where the forms dissolve in the white of the supports, perhaps offers us more than a simple retinal blindness : it is a visual experience that touches on the ephemeral, the fragile, the unstable. It invites us to embrace evanescence, to capture a fleeting and fragile visual essence.

Frédéric Messager, Slipvillan, 2023.

www.fredericmessager.sitew.com

The AIR is supported by the Région Hauts-de-France.