Eric Colonel & Thomas Spit
'ENCORE EUX'

The work of Eric Colonel & Thomas Spit instills a wild and fruitful poe- tic density, nothing more had to be done than to transcribe what the artists had to admit about their journey with ceramics and the inspira- tion behind their creativity. This very academic exercise turned out to be uncomfortable, especially since there can be a lot of lightness in the sculptures of Eric and Thomas who often have fun and laughs.

The fact remains that their works are true mirrors to the soul. I can ima- gine that the ethnography enthusiast would find much to say here. Their masks with bewildered features undoubtedly have to do with the carni- val traditions or the rites materialized in the artefacts of Primitive Art. It has to do with both primitivism and post-graffiti culture, expressionism, raw art or even children’s art.

Mon Colonel & Spit’s sculptures are also severed heads. The bigger ones are similar to the atrocities of the French Terror or the hunters of the island of Borneo; the smallest to the tsantzas of the Jivaros. Would their wide eyes conceal an apotropaic virtue? Literature - historical or not - is not shy of beheadings. The few Catholics who still haunt the country’s churches will think of the hagiography of the Baptist, Paul, De- nis and other martyrs. What would Antoine Wiertz say while browsing Chantecler, he who painted for glory and who went on repeating ha- ving met the morbid man who rushed under the scaffold to collect the thoughts and visions of the tortured right after their beheading? We should also be interested in the relationship of these “cobble faces” with the history of the portrait and the self-portrait.

Pierre Henrion - 'Chantecler'

Du mercredi 19 avril au 30 juin
Vernissage en présence des artistes le mercredi 19 avril
at ENCORE GALLERY