Alexandre Rochegaussen
When viewing Alexandre Rochegaussen’s works, the viewer is torn between the dance of luminous figures spinning above a canvas sky and the sequence of obsessions and fears that somehow emerge along the way.
He claims to convey in his paintings “the monstrous that lives very well within us and around us,” adding, “I can’t escape it. It comes back to me on its own.” But this is only to better join the “magical friezes of everyday life” that multiply scenes of flight and fall along the crest line of the drawing. His recent evolution gives the violence of colors and the sequence of forms, contrary to illustrations, a prominent place, as his contemporaries choose to paint dark forests from the cinema in the old style.
He also says: “I play with the animal, as in the arena. It also plays with me. It’s a deadly game. We enjoy it. It’s very colorful, like a match or a bullfight.” Familiar animals, such as cats, owls, and chimeras, run throughout his work, sometimes to escape, sometimes to bite, or both at once.
Rochegaussen’s universe is haunted by dangerous presences that can change into their opposites at any moment. Magic, one might say.
