Paintings, silkscreen prints, posters? Vincent Michéa’s fazing artworks carries us away.
He strayed away from his job as a graphic designer to become a painter, and ever since he dedicated himself to building a world that allows us to see the proad range of his interests: Vincent Michéa paints what he likes.
His story as an artist can be read in the variety of subjects he depicts, into those large sampled collections. He makes a selection within everything that he can perceptibly reproduce and translate into painting; but –troubling- he also selects what can be systematically reproduced by hand, a technic, which directly comes from his graphic designer skills.
Viewing these prints, all gathered in the same exhibition space, amounts to attending a visual show that appears in the retina and settles in the emotional memory. Icons are everywhere, as well as dots and lines, undoubtedly. Michéa seriously plays with the views, the references, and talk to us using the language of color about his standards, cinema, popular music, a beautiful time, here but mostly from elsewhere: another space-time, a nostalgia, a futuristic vision, humanistic.
His poetic graphic language, marked by the popular culture, is leading us along the rhythm of music. We shift to an intimate setting. We are practically in his home, staring at his vinyl collection, sitting on a couch enjoying a movie, or in his studio, contemplating the view by the half-opened window.
How can we describe his style? Simple, efficient, reachable, readable, easy, pleasant, teasing sometimes but never annoying, he replicates and expands vinyl record covers, isolating a scene: famous kissings, intimacy, love, brought on a large screen.
The perfection of his reproductions, approaching hyperrealism, and testimony of his frank choices, invites us to dance with the characters he depicts, celebrities or unknown people, all coming from a place far away, somewhere in the past, but to whom we feel surprisingly lose to. These important figures, which came whispering or shouting in soundtracks of the buzzing African independences, have deeply impacted the following generations. Vincent Michéa is bringing them back to life by paying them a tribute. A pictorial implied reference.
When gladly sliding into his Technicolor world, we are summoned by images that vibrate at the rhythm of the dots, letterings, faces, plans and views of a magnified city. Everything is alive and thrilling. With accuracy, Michéa brings us into his sensible interpretation of the world.
