Actuellement / Now
OPENART New York is pleased to present: Inner Room with a View
Curated by Marion Lamy
February 28 – June 30, 2021
Artists:
NAMGOONG Whan | Mickaël Doucet | Philippe Calandre
Individuals are currently facing unprecedented times with new challenges that are disrupting our way of life. As we weather the storm collectively through this global crisis; privately, we are developing our consciousness in order to define a new paradigm, what some would call the “world that comes after”.
"The Inner Room" is a poem by Arthur Conan Doyle first published in his 1898 poetry collection, Songs of Action. Conan Doyle is famously known as the creator of the character Sherlock Holmes, the scientific detective but few know of his attraction to psychic studies, spiritualism or paranormal activities. This poem evokes the soul of a person permanently in tension with his own different personalities. Each one never prevailing over the others.
This room references a place where the being is shaped and moulded, where multiple personalities present in oneself are defined in relation to the world. Expanding on this notion, the little chamber can be seen as the first place of creation and projection of the self. The intense inner activity that takes place in this environment has the ability to nurture the soul, making the man or the woman richer. Unfortunately, in our contemporary society where our leitmotiv is about “moving faster and further,” we often forget to cultivate our inner selves and therefore strive to find creative solutions to issues that may arise.
Inner Room with a View presented by OPENART features artworks created between 2017 and 2020 by three artists based in France, NAMGOONG Whan, Mickaël Doucet and Philippe Calandre. All three artists utilise different mediums to express and depict the vast and rich depths of one’s inner identity. This timely and poetic exhibition invites the viewers to engage with the meditative works that combine realism, illusion, abstraction, and explores the space between one’s inner tribulations including physical, intellectual and spiritual with the external world. An open border between the impalpable and the tangible and connects the past and the future in an effort to understand and restore one’s inner self.
This exhibit aims to provide the viewers solace from our daily lives, and also serves as a reminder to become more self-aware and strive to understand who we really are, what we are creating, and how we envision our future.
Le jeu des possibles - Artcan Gallery Marseille
Solo show - 16-03 .16-04 . 2021
La peinture de Mickaël Doucet est une peinture contemporaine par son propos mais aussi par ce qu’elle propose dans la continuité de la peinture traditionnelle. Contemplative dans son approche, elle n’en reste pas moins structurée de manière classique, par le jeu des compositions spatiales, architecturales mais aussi par les possibilités infinies du placement des éléments narratifs.
Ce jeu des possibles rend la peinture de Mickaël Doucet fortement créative et lisible, avec plusieurs niveaux de lecture telle une oeuvre littéraire, littérature elle-même chère au peintre. L’artiste invite en effet, grâce à de nombreuses orientations artistiques dans un même tableau, le spectateur à un voyage, voyage comprenant de multiples directions sensorielles. Qu’ils soient picturaux, philosophiques ou métaphysiques, ces chemins de traverse entraînent le lecteur vers des sentiments agréables, qui frôlent parfois avec la mélancolie douce ou une nostalgie d’un passé idéalisé … cet autre espace qu’il crée comme une hétérotopie , concept créé par Michel Foucault (conférence de 1967 intitulée des espaces autres) devient une scène de théâtre où se joue dans cette composition une pluralité de possibilités menant à la réflexion voire à la méditation…
C’est une invitation au voyage, à travers ses fenêtres ouvertes sur le monde, par ses jeux de couleurs composés grâce aux objets, aux aplats ou aux plantes où chaque oeuvre permet une narration différente…
Rentrer dans la peinture de Mickaël Doucet, c’est rentrer en immersion dans l’histoire de l’art, dans la couleur, dans la littérature, dans la reconsidération de notre patrimoine culturel (les références aux civilisation fondatrices et disparues) mais peut-être, avant tout, se rencontrer soi-même…
The painting of Mickaël Doucet is a contemporary painting by its subject but also by what it proposes in the continuity of traditional painting. Contemplative in its approach, it remains nevertheless structured in a classical way, by the play of spatial and architectural compositions but also by the infinite possibilities of the placement of narrative elements.
This play of possibilities makes Mickaël Doucet’s painting highly creative and readable, with several levels of reading like a literary work, a literature that is itself dear to the painter. Indeed, the artist invites the spectator, thanks to numerous artistic orientations in the same painting, to a journey, a journey that includes multiple sensory directions. Whether pictorial, philosophical or metaphysical, these paths lead the reader towards pleasant feelings, which sometimes verge on soft melancholy or nostalgia for an idealized past ... this other space that he creates as a heterotopia, a concept created by Michel Foucault (1967 conference entitled "Other spaces") becomes a theater stage where a plurality of possibilities leading to reflection or even meditation are played out in this composition ...
It is an invitation to travel, through its windows open to the world, through its play of colors composed through objects, flat areas or plants where each work allows a different narrative ...
To enter into Mickaël Doucet’s painting is to immerse oneself in the history of art, in color, in literature, in the reconsideration of our cultural heritage (the references to the founding and disappeared civilizations) but perhaps, above all, to meet oneself...
Diego Escobar, director of Artcan Gallery
Still on the web...
From 24 /04/2020
3D exhibition by Marion Guggenheim
I am delighted to present the virtual exhibition of Mickaël Doucet.
In this period of global confinement, his paintings allow us to escape. Like windows of hope, his paintings project us into an invigorating nature, a softer world.
Je suis ravie de vous présenter l’exposition virtuelle de Mickaël Doucet.
En cette période de confinement mondial, ses peintures nous permettent de nous évader. Comme des fenêtres d'espoir, ses toiles nous projettent dans une nature vivifiante, un monde plus doux...
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"An interpretation of time through space". In one sentence, Mickaël Doucet brings us the key to understand his work. The large interior spaces that he painted in his early days are "Villégiatures", places where "Order and beauty, Luxury, calm and voluptuousness" reign.
Mickaël Doucet’s approach seems to offer a contemporary vision to Baudelaire’s Invitation to Travel.
« Une interprétation du temps par l’espace ». En une phrase, Mickaël Doucet nous apporte la clé de compréhension de son travail. Les grands espaces intérieurs qu’il peint à ses débuts, sont des « Villégiatures », des lieux où règnent « Ordre et beauté, Luxe, calme et volupté ».
La démarche de Mickaël Doucet semble offrir une vision contemporaine à l’Invitation au voyage de Baudelaire.
Marion Guggenheim