Juste avant...

For the past ten years or so, my work has focused primarily on drawing and explores our anxious relationship with the world. My drawings, which consist of juxtapositions of disparate forms and images, may, at first glance, surprise the viewer with their vibrant colours and dense, dynamic composition. On closer inspection, however, these visual collages evoke a sense of unease. These fragments from different worlds coexist, causing our points of reference to waver between attraction and repulsion, thereby creating a sense of uncertainty that can open up a dialogue between the various representations. The most recent works are characterised by gazes. Anonymous and enigmatic eyes call us to bear witness and create a sense of unease. To feel uneasy is to desire to be connected to one’s needs; it is a symptom of the ability to form mental representations of one’s own unease. These eyes point towards something beyond the frame, leaving it to the viewer to envisage the context of these emotions. Depicting the terror in a gaze without knowing the reasons for that fear allows us to give tangible form to the anxiety that may be gripping us at that very moment. Fear is often vague; it is the realm of the indefinable that gives rise to suspicion. It is that singular moment just before the emergence of a glimpsed peril—whether fictional or real—which, in cinema, serves as the prelude to drama. Fear is therefore a prelude to action, a narrative driving force that feeds on the representations it creates. It is a sort of airlock that separates the world as representation from the world as experience. It is that moment of vigilance that signals our entry into reality. We are on the brink of a change, that inevitable second – always imminent yet calm – just before things spiral out of control. This paradoxical moment of absolute relaxation and extreme tension puts us on high alert, whilst our imaginations have already set off in search of fear. It is because danger exists that we imagine order and attempt to give it form – a dialectic that film noir makes palpable, by signalling the imminence of danger through a break in rhythm, and thus a shift in aesthetic order. Like an encounter, is danger ‘a snag’ in the fabric of the ordinary? A tear occurs, producing something new and conceivable. Through these representations, what matters is not who is looking, but that there is something to look at – and indeed, specifically, to see, observe and understand – thereby reorienting our gaze to unleash its full power. These drawings serve to signify the moment just before everything changes. These gazes give tangible form to fear and stem from an ambiguous relationship with reality, which often chaotically heralds what is vital to humankind. Reality is not what we expect; that is why we must remain prepared for the unexpected, for the sudden emergence of change. To foster this openness to the unknown, I strive to work with discomfort so that the viewer experiences conflicting impulses such as attraction and repulsion. For I love what is not self-evident, what is rough and jarring, so that the mind may run wild. For reason is linked to our emotions. To be aware of this is to have power over our perceptions and to cease being their object, becoming instead their subject. To create one’s own language is to be true to oneself in one’s own language. This language unfolds within the continuous flow of one’s own history and that of the world. It is to be contemporary in one’s own language. Philippe Perez