1st March – 6th April, 2013 Rod Barton, One Paget Street London EC1V
Going well beyond mere foldings of tin foil questioning flashy taste, Samuel’s latest works examine the purposeful nature of survival blankets and their relationship to other objects. Their reflective, insulating qualities to preserve life counter the artificial values with which their glossy aesthetic characteristics are associated.
The Joys of Man (series 1-3) are inspired by childhood memories of images, surfaces and objects in car repair workshops. Samuel François captures spontaneity and accidental outcomes with multiple readings. The Joys of Man series reference The Joys of a Woman the subtitle to the 1970’s erotic movie Emmanuelle. The numerous descriptive, associative and physical characteristic qualities of the material interrogate questionable assertions about differences between the sexes.
Samuel uses bold imagery of attraction and desire fix movement and passion within structured frames and cool revealing glass. Popular, stereotypical representations are examined in his paintings with objects. Grotesques remains of bygone imagery and crumpled sheets question tacky objectification. Melancholy is used to query decorative attempts to create signs of seduction and desire.
Samuel François (born 1977) lives and works in Hettange-Grande, Lorraine in France. His work has recently been in solo shows at galerie Jeanroch Dard, Paris; ALICE Brussels; and at Institut Suédois during la Nuit Blanche in Paris. His work has featured in group exhibitions at Centre d’art Dominique Lang, Luxembourg; galerie NaMiMa Ecole Nationale Supèrieure d’Art de Nancy; Milieu Galerie, Bern; Cripta, Turin and Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris. He curated A New Idea of Landscape at galerie NaMiMa-Ecole Nationale Supèrieure d’Art de Nancy and +4 an exhibition about Artists-Books.
The Joy of Man at Rod Barton, London is Samuel François first exhibition in the United Kingdom.
