Yannick Mahé

 > artist's statement

In my painting practice, I seek to fully embrace an abstract approach and free myself from any representation of reality. Painting becomes an experimental playground: I let myself be carried by impulses of color and gesture, embracing chance while attempting to bring it under control, in order to achieve a sense of balance and joy. It is also about allowing myself to be surprised by what emerges, to see something wild and unexpected come to the surface. My painting is rooted in the tradition of Lyrical Abstraction. The work of Willem de Kooning, Joan Mitchell, Per Kirkeby, and Hans Hartung, to name just a few, informs the way I see and, in a sense, leaves its traces on my canvases.

More recently, I have been experimenting with pastel, a medium that imposes greater constraints. Through it, I seek a calligraphic language capable of introducing rhythm and recovering the sense of movement that is essential to my large-scale acrylic paintings. The two techniques thus converge in a dynamic and highly colorful approach.

In contrast to this highly liberated approach to abstraction, my sculptures are rooted in a figurative practice. I begin with a discarded tool—used for gardening, DIY, or other practical purposes—and perceive within it a form that “looks like…” something, most often an animal. From this initial intuition, I cut, assemble, and complete the piece with other metal elements in order to “bring the animal to life.”