The Four Zoas

For this second post I show you my very first serious work with engraving, and specially linoleum. It was in 2008, for a show we had there about End of the World.
I need to say, if I started painting at the beginning of 1990', participating to exhibition for some years & drawing since I'm really young (like you I guess) I also spent 10 years learning my job and managing a professionnal studio. So there's only 4 years now that I re-do art for public show or publication, starting again with "my own style quest" with new technics.
Then I discovered linoleum like a beginner & when I was looking for woodcut, so I've done these first ones imitating old woodcuts, printing them on old paper from 16-17th c. I love doing imitation, detournements, playing with public perception & so on... but I prefer actually doing prints by my own style...
So, this is done after The Four Zoas, which are 4 symbolic entities found in hermetical sciences, & also used by William Blake as you could read there http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vala,_or_The_Four_Zoas

I used another definition of these Zoas which is something like : these 4 entities are the four principles who hide the real world, they're together ADAM (the Earth), physical reality which is hiding metaphysical reality to us... well, something like that ! For me that was a good occasion to show how peoples could be investigate by a very high opinion of themselves just because they do have this official meaning by the way of institutionnal labels. Simple example is someone who's looking at you like a worm because he sold a painting to the instituiton, which painting is hidden into a stadium watercloset, but no way, he is An Artist while you're just a simple human being... Same thing about "real musicians" & "artists" promoted by television and other media...



I've done this using different pieces of original woodcuts, spending lot of time to imitate frames etc. Original print is on old paper with sepia like ink, accompagnied by a gothic text and a drawing made after a famous Dürer print

uh well I need to better manage pictures... just clic on to see bigger