Freddy Joseph Melanie Michiels

About

Fred Michiels joue de l’épure. L’absence de fond, la transparence, c’est une manière d’entrer à vif dans l’univers mental où les images se téléscopent, où les matières se forment, où le réel prend corps.
Ni prééminence, ni éclairage externe, il porte une lumière immanente sur les choses. Elles semblent s’éclairer d’elles-mêmes, dans le médium pur d’une équivalence généralisée.
A la manière des comptes-rendus télévisés où le sujet de la plus grave indignation fait place aux résultats sportifs et au clin d’œil local, les lois de la perspective prennent un sens allégorique : à l’œil de faire le tri et de voir ce qui s’offre, à l’œil de distancier et de maintenir l’édifice par sens critique, s’il en garde la force.
Il est clair que vient un moment où le tout s’effondre, faisant place à un « chaos stellaire », expansé, pacifié, où les images voguent à l’improviste, s’enchevêtrent et se superposent…
Artiste vif, oeuvrant spontanément, Fred Michiels se laisse habiter par le grand melting-pot de la « post-histoire ». Il en rend les traits, en brosse le portrait maturé dans le bouillonnement de ses sens.
Alchimie des rythmes et de l’œil noués dans ses sismographies, le trait opère sans recul, porte avec lui ses propres coordonnées : il joue à la frontière du réversible, s’inverse, se distancie et revient dans l’aplat, appelle l’ investissement. Le tout brille dans l’absence, dans le non-lieu étrange qui transperce le monde…
La question de l’archive redouble la question du lieu : « archiver est ici considéré comme une procédure d’accumulation qui accueille favorablement l’idée d’une extension future et est ouverte à d’autres relations ou élargissements. » L’archive comme germe ou genèse, « discontinue, incomplète, hétérogène, mobile et fluide » se propose de murir en structures aléatoires, hautement individuelles et universelles, locales et internationales.

En parallèle à cette rétrospective, Fred Michiels sera en résidence d’artiste au Frans Masereel Center durant le mois de novembre. Il présentera le fruit , catalogue transparent lithographie… lors d’un drink de cloture de l’exposition le 1er décembre 2010

Jean-Philippe Goffaux
… Read More

Location: Montignies-sur-Sambre (Charleroi), Belgium
Website: http://le-cul-du-monde-artistique.blogspot.com/

Work

ONE PAINTING CAN CONCEAL ANOTHER
The stratified works of Fred Michiels

How can a classically-trained painter possibly compete with the visual invasion, the tsunami of images that flood our postmodern consumerist society? In a hyperkinetic society where young people simultaneously chat, text each other and listen to mp3’s, a painting or a drawing can seem dull and one-dimensional. For many artists this is a delicate question, but Fred Michiels heroically accepts the challenge. He knows his classics, as well as the limitations of his field of action. Rather than be resigned, he transforms the problem with a promethean ruse. Like most contemporary artists, he has diverse sources of inspiration and shifts effortlessly between « high art » and « lowbrow culture », going from Van Gogh to Tintin without any explanation. This makes his work as complex and stratified as the society in which we live. And, most of all, he knows how to translate the thematic diversity of his work onto the canvas : he doesn’t place diverse frames of reference one next to the other, in juxtaposition, but one on top of another as in a palimpsest. Michiels creates transpositions where drawings and paintings are superimposed, forming – or not – a narrative. Instead of telling a single story, he tells several at once. His impatience is a symptom of our zeitgeist. Sometimes he uses different colors to distinguish the various narrative threads but more often he doesn’t, which leads to an inextricably tangled web of lines, difficult to undo.

Behind his apparent nonchalence, Michiels conceals a great surety of line. He draws with one fluid line giving the impression that, like Picasso in his One-liners, he refuses to lift his hand from the paper. Sometimes he draws with both hands at once, which illustrates his impatience and artistic temperament.

Fred Michiels is a chameleon who easily crosses over from on style to another. With his vehement palette and comix subject matter, he’s like a fauve on speed. The clear line of Hergé, the subversive beauty of Magritte’s période vache, Polke’s multiple images… Michiels isn’t about to be pushed to the corner. And he’s constantly blurring the line between painting and drawing. The difference between these two modes of expression is irrelevant to his artistic practice. Michiels is always searching for supports other than the classic canvas, as with the series in which he uses markers and acrylic paint on transparent plastic.

Why limit yourself to one image when you can choose many? Michiels’ work goes againt the cult of the unique image; for him there is no absolute image. Each representation is mutable and interchangeable, as are some of the characters that appear and reappear in different constellations within his work. It’s no accident that he mines the internet for inspiration, which gives him an inexhaustable archive of interchangeable images. Explicit images from porn sites are transformed into something strikingly fresh and beautiful. Fred Michiels remains a classical artist who easily measures up to the challenges of his time.

Sam Steverlynck,Brussels
… Read More