November 2 – December 31 on M0reroom4art
CATALOGUE AVAILABLE HERE
Through a selection of works by C215, Nicolas Vial, Eric Lacan, Charlie Stein, Tomáš Jetela, Justine Otto, Noemi Conan and János Huszti… the exhibition invites us to understand the ambivalent figure of the smoker… sensual, fatal, seductive, toxic, intoxicating, suffocating, elegant, decadent, scandalous… to the point of vanity!
In this virtual space, we play with prohibitions and reality… we smoke inside… we burn the candle at both ends… and above all we breathe art to the fullest of our lungs!
Illustrator and painter, Nicolas’ works are almost literature because it is all about story telling. A drawing, a watercolor… becomes an adventure… A painting becomes an Odyssey.
A maritime atmosphere… a dialogue with paper… the face of a smoker… it’s always a travel and encounter.
The Man who Smokes (L’homme qui fume)… a series of anonymous portraits… has something cinematographic… something of a fiction.
The smoker, in similar big formats offers similar variations and close-ups. Masked by the shadow of his hat and holding a cigarette in his mouth… the smoker is between the gangster and the vigilante.
We just see the face but we feel the silence of the instant… crossing his sight in the street… like a duel.
The cigarette balances the composition and even manifests the expression as much as a facial features…
Urban artist, C215 is mastering portraiture with the technique of stencil. Whatever the format, the faces of men and women, heroes or anonymous, are treated equally… with the same respect and empathy.
His work is full of humanity and hope… being a vibrant and colorful tribute to those who live with ideal and courage… those who believe in freedom and intelligence… those who fight for themselves and for others… those who enjoy and sometimes suffer.
Among his portraits, we find smokers…
The cigarette can be an inevitable accessory of a personality (Gainsbourg, Brassens…), a poetic melancholy, a cinematographic memory… or just an expression of reality… an image of the society.
Urban artist, Eric deals with light and shadow. Black or dark brown and white… sometimes a touch of gold… he plays with the maximum contrast. Stencil, collage, painting, drawing, papercut… the precision and accuracy of the line is at the heart of all his technics…
Sometimes it has the vintage aspect of a Cabinet of curiosity sometimes the universal strength of a vanity… Wild animals, branches, flowers, bones, skulls, fatal women… are important elements of his compositions.
Here the smoker has the sight of a fatal woman… holding a cigarette while looking back to her. The expression comes from the eyes and the position of the hand… emphasized by the cigarette itself… consuming… life and beauty.
It also compensates the fact that the mouth his hidden by a bandana… no word and no breath… How is she even smoking… it doesn’t matter she’s almost an allegory!
At the edge of the world, the work of Tomas invites the viewer to cross the line between reality and dreams… between figuration and abstraction… between the past and tomorrow.
Through the looking glass, fragments of light and stories merge into a wild harmony of forms and expressions. The historical meets the original.
Among his figures, smokers are recurrent but have different auras… from the decadent poetry to the Femme Fatale, by way of cinematic or literary references… and culminating with the vanitas.
The cigarette either underlines the expression of the mouth or hands, or incarnates the passive or active combustion of life. Until the end, it must be enjoyed like a puff of existence.
There is something melodic into Justine’s work… in the curves of the characters, in the distribution of colors, in the figuration and abstraction. The body expresses a fluid movement, and the composition could be heard like music.
Alone or not, the characters are often represented with musical instruments. The decomposition of movement also appears like a rhythm, an harmony.
Her smokers have something of Western protagonists, with multiple faces and wearing hats. The cigarettes are also multiple and are similar to instruments. What instrument are you playing? Not a flute or a clarinet… I am playing the cigarette! The smoke becomes a sound. And has the cigarette points directions, the smoker has something of a conductor.
Radiant supernatural existences at the edge of the past and future… the work of Noemi is a condensate of multiple inspirations. Women from the underworld to the divinity… from the past to the present.
Mythology, Slavic folklore… but also heroism as a socialist realism reference… the women (alone and together) have a solid presence and ambiguous femininity.
The smokers are omnipresent in her composition, and the cigarette belongs to a contemporary iconography and a certain form of ritual… emphasizing the incandescence of the scenes and figures.
Eyes behind glasses, cigarettes in the mouse… often participates to include, to capture, the viewer as part of the composition and narration… not only a passive observer.
Vibrant colors, glossy, sensual, rebellious… the work of Charlie is generational… pop and electro like an underground music in the streets of Berlin or an early clip of Grimes.
It has a taste of cyberpunk, between reality and fiction… a social anticipation… a portrait of the future.
Human and mechanical… women are as much flesh as plastic… animated and inanimate like dolls (or robots)… natural or artificial intelligence?
They have personality, autonomy, and emotions as we observe their big shining eyes and gestures. They can seduce or set fire to the place… breaking the rules and expectations.
The smokers also have this wide range of possibilities… being either fragile or powerful. The cigarettes and lighters become fetish objects that embody change and control… empowerment.
The work of Janos offers a wide range of different styles and figures.
From grey tons to very colorful compositions, from figurative to completely abstract… the appearances are always questioned… in a new form of reality and personality. Blurred, composite, photographic, cinematographic… the story is always told differently, but with a general consistency.
His smokers also belong to this variety of representation… from the vaporous atmosphere of a mouth exhaling smoke to the burning feeling of abstraction.
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