Monument Valley, Seasons 2 & 3, In Memoriam of Sabeen Mahmud
JFrancois Chenin
Monument Valley, Seasons 2 & 3,
In Memoriam of Sabeen Mahmud
Faraar Gallery
March 25 - April 1, 2017
Opening reception: Sun, March 25, 6.30 - 8.00 pm
Faraar Gallery is pleased to present Monument Valley, Seasons 2 & 3, in Memoriam of Sabeen Mahmud, an exhibition of new digital collages by JFrancois Chenin. This is his second solo show with Faraar Gallery, which he has dedicated to the memory of Sabeen Mahmud.
“Monument Valley is a childhood remembrance, a journey, a particular relationship with pop art and collages, a literally literary attempt.
I never liked painting; at best some drawings with China ink a long time ago, an attraction for architect’s designs, the use of rOtring pen and ruler, the highlighting and white spaces, very little of blue in that period, above all red, grey, black, a good pair of scissors and glue, some collages with the help of cartoons, newspapers and the utilization of trichloroethylene in quest of superposition and transparence, above all faces on handwritten pages. As good as to confess that nothing destined me to picture-drawing.
This childhood was a patchwork, a sequence of instant sensations, reconstituted afterwards.
I am only preoccupied with the balance and the composition.
I move forward without theory only on the basis of infatuations and because I have an urge to see the paintings hanging on wall, in the books, on the canvas, I never tire of taking in images (no doubt they are only images!). Is it the painting or rather the composition and the emotional dizziness, which it conceals that I feel which I swallow?
In the Monument Valley I compose.
Each component of the composition links me to a vision and to the particular instant of this vision. I compose the paintings like I write the sequels of my books: by diverting them, by turning them upside down and recomposing them until finding the correspondence between the thought and the “painting”.
In which it is question of journey.
This journey is precisely Monument Valley in which I bring the pictorial space nearer to the pop art of big American spaces, in which the graphical intentions of the American paintings of 50’s and 70’s incorporate this natural space, which hesitates between the earth and the sky. From it also flows this attachment to the perspectives, whether open or intimate, always majestic, that a textual or pictorial composition allows me to draw.
I do not differentiate between a sequel and a painting
Reality and fiction get entwined, reality of the sentiments and fictional space which allows their exploration. The scores follow each other and reconstitute the emotions. “As far as the fascination is concerned, the ear has the music. The eye has the painting. The death has the past. Love has the naked body of the other. The literature has the individual language reduced to silence” wrote Pascal Quignard. The basic thing is to recommence. The compositions of Monument Valley bear the imprints of this ranting silence. One will never finish with writing.
This ambition of recommencing, putting together the pieces, reconstituting the past and the future, joining what remained separated; every thing is present in it. I follow this path whenever I write or compose so as not to resume a seemingly interrupted conversation on meeting again.“
JFrancois Chenin
Karachi, 16 February 2017
JFrançois Chénin is the Director of Alliance Française de Karachi. Born in 1954, in Lorraine, he spent his childhood abroad (Iran, Turkey, Greece ...), thanks to a father fond of traveling. He underwent his secondary education in Avignon and then studied philosophy at Grenoble and Economy of Education at Dijon. He currently lives in Karachi, Pakistan.
He spent time in two ministerial cabinets. He touched politics but he perceives his world rather through his heart. He abandoned politics. He made an escapade in the United States, stayed in Albuquerque (where it all began), then in Canada, Quebec (where everything began once again). He also served as mayor of a village of 500 inhabitants, Veyssilieu, a commune in the Isère department in southeastern France. He participated in the creation of the national network of equal opportunities for girls and boys in the French school system.He created the Research and Development department at the ONISEP and later led a company of pastry products.
He has lived abroad for 20 years at the service of French language and culture as Director of French Cultural Centre or Deputy Cultural Counsellor or General Delegate of Alliance Française (Israel, India, United States and Pakistan today). Since childhood, he has a taste for elsewhere.
He has three children and he loves to linger on the terrace of cafes.He likes gray, black and white, blue sky and silent deserts. He is also a writer.
