— Tournesols Noirs (Black Sunflowers).
Black matter on wood 73x93cm - 2020
A haunted and terrifying version of the Famous Tournesols of Van Gogh, in the same format as the original.
Like Orpheus going down in Hell, I went to pick up the flowers in the infernal garden, located on the other side of the visible spectrum.
An antithesis of these flowers from the sun declined in a dark vision. This new version of my Manoirs is a work of paint patina in thickness, where one distinguishes clearly the Terracotta pot from which the Sunflowers overflow.
Beyond the representation of inanimate objects, this is a vegetal personification of humans, a subtil metaphor of time passing, going from life to death.
Now, what to think about this dark version of these Flowers of Evil?
Like the others from the Manoirs serie, I used one pigment: a Terre de Cassel. A composition embracing reactive areas with those which are not, like marquetry but with black matter. The result, these Lunar flowers and not anymore solar, reacting to the spectrum of black light.
An exercise in style but in dark and worriying version.