PHILIPPE HERARD

PHILIPPE HERARD – GUGS AND MEN

December 2017 – 1874 words

SHADOWS AND LINE

A text by Gérard Pisana recounts that upon waking, you first paint the background. Then you add and scrape away layers of paint…

To this day, I don't like working on a white background, so I dab the surface with paint. Once it's dry, I can start laying down the drawing and working on the subject. The blank page terrifies me: when I paint, I always apply several layers to ensure a background shows through, allowing the colors to vibrate against each other. The sheet metal, as a support, is like a blank page, and I have to paint as little as possible to preserve as much of it as possible. I need that texture in the background.

Once I have my subject in mind, I position it and paint it. This use of the background, as I just described, sometimes helps me to make the subject stand out. Furthermore, I don't work with impasto but rather in a smooth, thin layer.

Could you elaborate on the importance you place on shadows in your work?

Shadow allows the subject to fully integrate with the support, so that by gaining volume, it becomes a new dimension of the artwork. If you place a figure on the wall in front of us, simply outlining it in black, it will appear flat. But if we model it with a projected shadow, we then obtain an impression of depth. I love seeing the relationship between the figure and the support transformed by the use of shadow and the creation of a new space.

For the exhibition at the Joël Knafo Gallery, I used the work of Gaëlle Labarthe, a photographer friend. In her work, shadows, like those cast by electrical wires on a wall, become the main elements. My character is invisible, and we only see his shadow, the starting point of the story. I liked this idea of absence, and one or two works are devoid of any human presence.

Your work relies heavily on materials, particularly through the use of kraft paper or newspaper.

In my street collages I use a lot of kraft paper, which I leave visible, barely covering it with paint. I draw a lot for these collages, but I rarely use paint, even though my practice is constantly evolving.

Your style is characterized by a very sketchy quality, and your characters never seem completely finished.

As a painter and illustrator, I want people to realize that it's both drawing and painting, not to think they're looking at a photograph. When I paint, the paint flows; when I draw, I like the pencil strokes to be visible. I don't want the result to be a black and white image, but rather to sculpt a character that feels alive, made of pencil and paint strokes. It deeply moves me to bring impossible characters into the world, to tell stories with chalk, close enough to reality, yet without ambiguity.

Your street art often has a dull, almost monochrome appearance.

Perhaps this is one of my defining characteristics: my street art is completely different from my work on other surfaces. On canvas, it will be very colorful, but in the street, you have to paste quickly, so I draw and leave a lot of kraft paper. Similarly, I wouldn't use the same color palette for my street collages.

THE GUGS

Your characters often seem to exist in a precarious balance.

I've learned to construct my paintings in a certain way to avoid visual imbalances in terms of mass, tone, or line. However, I always place my characters slightly off-balance. We all find ourselves in everyday situations that aren't serious, but that present a constant sense of imbalance. We might make a mistake without knowing how to recover. I like to put my characters in challenging but never dangerous situations, which reflect our everyday anxieties.

The gaze plays a significant role in your compositions. It is often concealed, hidden in the shadows. Your characters seem not to look at us, or to be somewhat hesitant to do so.

I would like this gaze to be direct yet concealed, for everything to be conveyed through shadows. If I were truly talented, I would work on the hidden emotions in the shadows, finding the stroke of the pen that allows us to sense that this concealed gaze is fixed upon us, so that we have the impression, through the shadows, of being looked into the eyes. Technical virtuosos, who paint magnificent eyes, rarely move me. What touches me most is managing to convey an intense emotion through a blurred form.

This shadow is like a veil, giving them the posture of a watcher, but on the sidelines of the world.

They are both with us and elsewhere. There are many people who are among us and yet not, like reflections of ourselves. Through dialogue, we become aware of these dimensions.

Your characters seem lonely.

Sometimes you see very far, as if you were facing the sea. It's an immensity that makes you feel alone when you look at it. I think we're always alone even in the midst of others. You can get bored with ten people around you; it happens to me a lot. Yet, even if you remain alone no matter what, it's important for me to be among others. Graphically, I like to place my characters in vast landscapes and, most often, alone.

URBAN VIEW

What is your perspective on the street, given that you started acting in public spaces quite late in your career?

I didn't grow up in this world at all, so I can say that I'm as old in age as I am young in my perspective and my relationship to the street, because I know absolutely nothing about it. Initially, it was a way to showcase some of my work. I continued when I realized the positive feedback and the small scale it was reaching. It served my studio work, but now it's something else entirely, and I want to continue painting on walls because it's about offering—even imposing—a creative expression on other people. This other, more direct perspective has become essential to me. I think it's helped my studio work, pushing me to create much simpler pieces. The wall becomes an extension of it, even though sometimes, conversely, I create things on walls that inspire me to reproduce them in the studio. The interplay between the two is what's important. I've created subjects on walls that I've never painted on paper or canvas, and vice versa.

Do you prepare your works in advance or do you conceive them in relation to a specific space?

It's probably a mix of these two motivations. I might prepare a wall because I feel like it, or I might do lots of little things while walking around and scatter my collages as I go through the city streets. I have dozens of pieces in my studio that I may never put up.

Your works are very much rooted in the north of Paris.

At first, I wanted to put up posters all over Paris, but I didn't realize how much work that would be. Even if you put up twenty posters around your neighborhood, you've only covered ten streets. I limit myself to my own area, even if it's somewhat unintentional. I don't think I'd be comfortable putting them up everywhere. Little by little, maybe I'll just restrict myself to this area. I feel good here, people are interested, and I feel at peace when I'm putting up posters. I'm not an adventurer, and the idea of doing this somewhere else upsets me. I feel good in Belleville, and I wouldn't mind being only here.

How do you care about the ephemeral nature of collage?

I chose to do collage for studio work because I can't perform in front of an audience and I need to be alone at home to create. I make mistakes a lot, and I don't want to think about being outside in front of a crowd. I'd be under insane pressure, which I don't need! In the studio, I can make mistakes and start over as many times as I want. Collages age well, and when they're removed, all that remains is the imprint, which tells a different story.

A UNIQUE ATMOSPHERE 

In the same way as Jean Rustin, you represent humanity in a raw, brutal, almost miserabilist way.

I think an artist must have something to say, otherwise they're just a decorator. Jean Rustin has a vision that stems from his own life, but he never wanted it to be interpreted that way. He lost a child and spent time in psychiatric hospitals. As a result, he has a way of expressing himself, of painting his vision of humanity, his own story.

I think that in some ways I identify with this instinctive approach: I need to express things—which are much less powerful and beautiful than Jean Rustin's—and to say them without analyzing them. I question everything that's happening and surrounding us. I'm not insensitive; on the contrary, I think everything is connected. When you can't express things with words and you express them through drawing, they sometimes come out harsher and more direct.

I'm not into self-analysis. What interests me is how others perceive my work. Why a character is naked or clothed, I don't know. In my vision, at that precise moment, they have to be that way.

Can you comment on these phrases found in the short films on your website? Murmur And Broyer du Soir  ?

“You leave me with much more than a footprint, more than a trace, an absence.»

It's a sentence from a book by Véronique Ovaldé. I built this story around that sentence. I love it; it's melodic and evokes many things.

“The studio, a chair, and me on it. I would like to paint the evening of a city.”

This story is about someone who leaves their studio and goes for a walk outside. The text is personal, but it took me ages to write. Putting images to a sentence… The artist always struggles to convey their emotion on the canvas. I'm never satisfied with what I do; I always want to tell myself that the next paintings will be better. I don't know if I'll ever manage to create something I like. I'm still searching. That's what keeps me going.

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