Jean-Vincent Simonet
The gallery is delighted to take part in the 7th edition of the A PPR OC HE exhibition, held at the Hôtel particulier Le Molière, 40 rue de Richelieu 75001 Paris (November 9 to 12, 2023). This event brings together artists who appropriate the photographic medium through experimentation. After Julien Mignot (FR) in 2017, Antony Cairns (GB) in 2020, Lucas Leffler (BEL) in 2021, Intervalle presents Lures by Jean-Vincent Simonet (FR) in 2023.
Jean-Vincent Simonet, a graduate of ECAL (Lausanne), works with inks in his family's printing business, which has been in operation for four generations. In the tradition of the "colorists", the artist has developed an experimental photographic printing technique that enables him to question the seductive power of synthetic colors (the fascinating history of these colors is recounted by Carolyn L. Kane in Chromatic Algorithms). The subjects photographed are brightly colored decoys imitating nature. Between shooting a subject with a digital camera and running it through the inkjet printer, only a few re-frames are required. It's afterwards that the artist operates, when the plastic paper used emerges impregnated with still-moist inks. The practice is similar to that of a silver retoucher. No computer work, everything takes place in close contact with the work, arbitrated by the passage of time and the weather. The silver printer retouches with chemistry, whereas Jean-Vincent Simonet uses water and gravity (to obtain the drips) as well as gestures borrowed from painters (rubbing, erasing with a brush, spreading with a brush, with the finger, etc.). The artist crushes the lines, drowns the pixels, subtracts the layers, making the underlying colors, the synthetic colors, appear. By X-raying photography, he forbids himself any reproducibility, creating only unique works. He resolutely distances himself from the principle of reality generally attributed to this medium. Fishing flies and neon lights, meant to attract fish and humans alike, become still lifes in hallucinatory colors (Fishing_Fly) and metamorphose into spider webs inviting reverie (Spider_Tactics).
Jean-Vincent Simonet (1991) divides his time between Zurich, Paris and Bourgoin-Jailleu. He has exhibited in renowned institutions and galleries such as the Centre de la photographie Genève, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Cabaret Voltaire Zürich, Villa Noailles Hyères, FOAM Amsterdam, Webber Represent London, Fondazione Vico Magistretti Milan, Musée des Beaux-Arts Le Locle, and others. His work can be found in private and public collections such as the Vontobel Art Collection, FOAM Amsterdam, LUMA and the Swiss Post Office.
