Romain Froquet
A LINE TO UNITE GESTURE AND COLOUR
COURSE
You took your first artistic steps within the collective Le 9th Concept.
My first encounter with Stéphane Carricondo and the collective dates back to 1998/1999 in Charente-Maritime. I was in my final year of high school, and during the Sang 9 exhibition, I discovered a film by Ghislain de Vaulx: they were the ones who inspired me to come to Paris. Not knowing what to do the following year, I arrived in the capital at eighteen, secretly dreaming of joining the collective, because I felt that was the path that lay ahead for me. They were older artists than me, experienced, with already well-defined styles. I approached them, and they allowed me to come to their studio to watch them work, to develop my own artistic journey with and thanks to them. They became like family to me, teachers and friends. Within this collective, I felt protected, having all the time in the world to learn and experiment, even though I didn't yet have my own style. Being very curious, I observe a great deal, frequenting museums and discovering a new world through collections of primitive art. My early works are thus heavily influenced by tribal art and masks, with a clear connection to African art. As the years passed, I experimented with more realistic styles, creating figurative portraits. This entire journey was part of a learning process. Around 2008, I truly began to develop my own style, my goal being to find my identity, to be recognizable, and to define myself as an artist. This seemed essential for my own emancipation. It took about ten years for me to move away from figurative art and towards a much more abstract style, which I continue to develop today. This style is heavily influenced by calligraphy and tribal art, with a focus on line and symbolism, such as the number 8, a symbol of infinity but also of the Earth.
TWISTING THE LINE: A CALLIGRAPHIC RESONANCE
Even today, one senses a kind of tension in your work between this abstract dimension and a figurative remnant. Your trees, therefore, still retain a form.
This word is very well chosen, because I tend to talk about tension Regarding the line: my ultimate quest is the search for harmony in creation. Finding this balance involves a tension, not wanting excessive roundness but rejecting the straight line, not because I dislike it, but because my abstraction is deeply imbued with symbolism. The shortest path between two points is never, for me, a straight line, which only exists schematically. I believe that in life, to get somewhere, we always take different roads or paths, and that, for me, is what the curve represents. Furthermore, the symbol of the tree almost imposed itself upon me: in moving away from figurative art, I found that there was something very organic, almost vegetal, in my work, a path I had to develop. The tree signifies the connection with the earth, rootedness and roots, where we come from but also where we go, allowing for an emancipation that reaches for the sky. My work is very much focused on this idea, as well as on letting go and sensations. Visually, it's a framework that allows me to experiment with themes and emotions. But it remains a struggle, letting go of the desire to represent something. We live in a world where it's necessary to explain everything, and abstraction ultimately proves quite complex in terms of accessibility and understanding. That's why I use subterfuges like roads (Highway), which will help me to serve my purpose and my argument.
A closed motif like that of the tree remains within the realm of a pre-imposed framework. However, one sometimes gets the impression that these lines seek to escape: they give a dynamic to the painting while sometimes becoming a compositional element.
The tree is completely closed; it's a drawing. But what I'm trying to paint doesn't have a predefined form; it's a fluid, an energy. For a while, I wondered if my work wasn't more of an abstract mapping of connections. Indeed, a connection can be an electrical cable transmitting current, a root, or a road. There's one between us that's intangible but undeniably exists. What interests me is everything we can't see, everything we can't explain, in an attempt to materialize it. Is it necessary? I have the feeling that all human beings are connected to one another, that we belong to the same species. But we forget this invisible link because we all have our own lives to live. Isn't it paradoxical to want to connect with others when what's most important is our own development? We are part of a whole connected to the Earth. This is where we come from and where we will return. For my part, I want to tell this story in a very abstract way. My work thus revolves more around questioning than asserting. I think the artist has an important role in society, like a sponge that absorbs everything and then brings it out in their own way. They must maintain a certain distance, being there to observe, with one foot in the world and one foot out. So their work becomes a testimony, whether it's in 2020 or 1950, with very different sensibilities and stories to tell.
The concept of calligraphy also raises the question of repetition, of the ability to evolve while always starting from the same place.
It's a true process in itself: Chinese and Japanese calligraphy bear witness to a gestural language developed from a very young age. The repetition of a movement, a drawing, or a motif leads to detaching the mind from the action. By dint of repeating, one no longer thinks about what one is doing; one simply does it. This results in a greater purity of gesture, a line in harmony with who one is and where one finds oneself. Painting on the ground is thus, for me, a powerful experience, with both feet firmly planted on the earth. It's a practice akin to calligraphy, even if it's not visually or stylistically comparable. The result is a very personal, almost naive, gesture.
Do you consider yourself to be searching for the perfect gesture?
I don't seek perfection in gesture, stroke, or line, but rather harmony. These are two different but ultimately very similar things, both of which raise the question of what perfection is. However, I realize that harmony conveys more and offers greater depth. Where perfection leads to a value judgment, harmony leads to a feeling. For me, a line must be fluid and seamless, but sometimes there are drips or other unwanted elements, but that's okay because, having repeated the gesture hundreds of times, it has become as it should be: that's why I believe harmony is paramount.
This could also be compared to music or dance, arts in which repetition allows one to reach an additional dimension.
Through repetition, the mind transcends the physical body. It takes years of practice to achieve a degree of freedom in one's work. This pursuit of freedom of movement, and therefore freedom of creation, is a personal quest. The conflict between figuration and abstraction may also play out here: the more I manage to let go, the more I gravitate towards abstraction and lines that have neither beginning nor end, except for the support itself.
THE VIBRATION OF COLORS
Your colours maintain a special relationship with the line that opposes them while segmenting them, almost carrying within it the idea of a colour chart.
The line creates a partition all the more because I often paint it in black with India ink. This choice of black imposed itself on me because within the 9th Conceptually, there's a whole process of working with outlines, which can have influences in comics, but also in the Free Figuration movement with artists like Robert Combas who greatly influenced my peers. It's also a color that, for many civilizations, symbolizes the Earth, and that's why I've retained it. When I work with color in relation to line, the question of delimitation does indeed arise, because while the latter implies a desire to connect two points, drawing it also establishes a boundary. This paradox of the line that connects and divides fascinates me, and I haven't finished exploring it. Today, this black line plays a less prominent role in my work, but that doesn't mean I'm setting it aside: I'm simply exploring other things, like transparency and movement.
Your work involves a constant search for how to make colors resonate with each other.
For me, colors are the first thing that strikes me. They instantly convey emotions, they tell stories. I can't separate color from a work. Some are very spontaneous, natural, like black, or blue, which always returns even when I try to detach myself from it. These choices are cyclical: I started by working with ochres, connected to the earth, and then blue came from a desire to question light. It can evoke very different things: light blue, or pastel, leads to escape, well-being, and gentleness, while dark blue is sometimes harsher than black. The idea of monochromatic palettes is also important because when I choose a color, I have to explore it fully: I take red all the way to pink, the blue of the oceans all the way to the sky. For each color, there's an exploration to find the note that will best enhance it. Next, I look for the complementary color, which may not always be the same, preventing this monochrome palette from being a true monochromatic effect. This subtle interplay is essential for appreciating the initial hue. For me, color is something innate, without ulterior motive: it depends on the moment, my mood, the state of society. In fact, I consider myself more of a colorist than a draftsman or painter. During lockdown, I felt terrible. I had a studio near my home and everything I needed to paint, but I just couldn't manage it. That's when I realized that society and the times we live in inspire me far more than I thought. After this period, I managed to paint again, starting with color palettes I had never explored before: vibrant canvases expressing a need for light and vitality.
PARALLEL REFLECTIONS
Do these investigations into repetition and color interact or evolve in parallel?
I think the word "dialogue" is the right one. My work is a whole composed of multiple elements that interact with each other: reflecting on monochrome will later inform my work with color, just as painting a building facade can help me paint a small canvas. Then there are desires for color, line, and black and white, but I think the more strings an artist has to their bow, the more they can explore different areas. I don't believe I have a very wide range of techniques, but that suits me very well because it allows me to focus on what I'm aiming for.
Movement now occupies a central place, with line and color blending together.
I now work with color using layering and transparency, which redraw new lines, only to rediscover them anew. Without wanting to abandon one style for another, I think it's a logical progression, because human beings are always in motion. We all have our anxieties; mine is the fear of being stuck, of things becoming frozen. From this feeling stems this work on line, fluidity, and connections, with other dimensions unfolding in the background. I've thus explored series in which I question the passage of time, working with rust to try to freeze its oxidation process. But this isn't possible; we can't stop time. My works on various media attempt to capture these lines, to freeze them and place them within a painting. This attempt to pause, to freeze things, raises once again the question of what is in motion and what is not.
THE STREET SETTING
In what way is the street a particular creative space for you? Is it part of a collective approach?
Working in the street was part of my learning process, because by joining the collective I entered a school where almost anything goes. There are no rules, no trends, no things to do or not to do. This discovery happened gradually, through the actions of the 9thth Concept, whether it's collage or sticker. Later, discovering mural painting was liberating, because changing dimensions gave me the feeling of changing my medium and therefore my technique. I had felt that my style was confined to canvas, and this move to the street freed it, as if it had been caged until then. In the studio, I was very focused on arm and hand movements, but when working on a wall, the gestures are much broader; the body comes into play through movement.
What does it offer that the workshop does not?
The street allowed me to work on complex, challenging surfaces. Walls aren't blank canvases like those in the studio. Urban space offers interaction with passersby who chat, exchanges that enrich my thinking by questioning it. At first, you don't know how to respond, but after a while, you start to question yourself. The street helped me develop, understand, and make others understand my work, like a mirror. It thus proved complementary to the studio: the latter is, in effect, a bubble we create for ourselves. For me, it's a temple, a place where I feel quite alone, where I share few moments of intimacy. Conversely, in the street, you expose yourself, you show yourself to others, you put yourself at risk, even if I don't commit acts of vandalism there. Unlike artists who act this way, I need comfort, the time to work in defiance of illegality, which would otherwise be a hindrance. Nevertheless, there's a risk involved in showing your work to people who haven't asked for it, in making a donation to a neighborhood, to its residents, to a city. I consider an action in the street to be a testimony, a trace an artist leaves behind that no longer belongs to them, whereas a canvas is a newly created object.
How did you transition from collage to direct outdoor painting?
It happened gradually: I pasted up paintings I'd done in the studio because it was quick, easy, and efficient, even though I ended up doing relatively few compared to many other street artists. I didn't have this desire to cover Paris with trees. It was a series, a step towards mural painting. But I'll probably come back to it, because it's a stage I haven't finished exploring.
The street also transforms the artist's relationship to time by making the piece ephemeral.
The important thing is that the energy, the mentality, the state of mind are the same. Painting a picture, creating an installation, or an urban collage are all part of the same process for me. I was quickly influenced by artists for whom collaborating with a brand, preparing an exhibition, or creating an outdoor collage was all the same. I then understood that the important thing was to go where I felt like going. Whether it's ephemeral or not doesn't matter. Even if this notion is very present in the street, everything is actually ephemeral: my canvas will be just as ephemeral; only the timescale changes.
URBAN INTERVENTIONS AND ARTISTIC DIALOGUE
Through the 9th Concept, you have been used to a form of artistic dialogue. However, in the urban space, the nature of this dialogue is transformed, because the relationship with other artists is no longer a choice and involves cohabitation in space.
Before I even collaborate with other artists, a dialogue already exists between my work and the street, the building, or the wall—between the lines, the colors, and an architectural element designed and conceived in relation to its environment. When I'm preparing an urban project, I always try to visit the site beforehand to compose my color palette accordingly. But I also try to go to places that don't already have too many artworks, because it's more interesting to be in places where you're not expected. Furthermore, I participate in many festivals where walls are side by side and coexistence is automatic. If pieces are already installed, I'll try to create a dialogue with them by talking with other artists and watching them work. This also stems from how I learned to create collectively. The patchwork we find in the street today tells a story, but I don't find it very aesthetically pleasing. I understand the need for artists to exist, but this could also be expressed through other mediums such as stickers.
Do you feel like you are part of an artistic movement?
Many people ask me if I consider myself a street artist. Whether I like it or not, it's a fact: urban art is undeniably a movement. I tend to connect it to contemporary art, of which it is a component. Taking a step back, we can see that this movement isn't so young anymore; it has evolved considerably, encompassing practices as diverse as graffiti, stenciling, and street art. It's fantastic to be part of this evolution, to participate in the debates surrounding its (non)existence. It's a direct descendant of Pop art, and for me, we are all children of Keith Haring, who broke countless rules by painting in the street simply because he wanted to. Today, there's a profusion of images and artists, in constant dialogue with an audience that is engaged and open to exchange: it's a popular movement. Without being one for labels, I am an artist working within the field of urban art. But my work is not limited to that or to painting walls: it consists of experimenting and discovering the world in a continuous process over a lifetime.
In my opinion, the 9thth The concept is almost more of a gathering than a collective: the personal journeys of the member artists continue in parallel with the evolution of the group.
I developed through this collective, I became independent from it, perhaps even left at one point, but it has always represented my artistic family. It grew on its own and I evolved in parallel, but always observing each other, which meant I always felt supported. As an artist, we often seek solitude, which reflects a need to exist, but belonging to an entity makes us even stronger. Beyond that, when the collective is highlighted, it's also about us. We all have things to say individually, but we can also say them together. In this solitary world, belonging to an artistic family is a blessing. Within the 9th Conceptually, we share this common history: it's an example that reflects a particularity of urban art, namely the need to come together, which demystifies the myth of the necessarily unhappy creator. The artists are accessible, showcasing the creative process through performance, establishing a connection with the world that is characteristic of this movement.
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