Laurent Davigny

"The eyes are blind, you have to look with the heart. "To enter this world, in Laurent DAVIGNY's universe "Black Angels and other characters", we must look with the heart at this painting which finds its right place between figuration and abstraction. From then on it is possible to notice the importance of the matter, where all the difference lies, by working on the matter he chooses to treat the surface that reminds us of the importance of the supports and their formats. The warm tones used repeatedly in his paintings are a reminder of the colourful atmospheres observed during his travels in Africa. Impregnated with prehistory, rock painting and African soil, traveller and curious, it feeds on the traces of the earth, the struggle of man and the materials of the earth, its colours are those of primitive life: ochre of the earth; deep blue of the night; red of the blood; white of the clouds; black of the ashes; yellow of the sun; ochre red of the laterite of tropical countries. The layers of matter and paints are superimposed until they form strata, comparable to geological strata. The canvas is only finished once it has been reworked in its thickness. Adding and removing the material gives the canvas a particular texture. Glue, scratch, erase, cover, sand, tear. This is the long journey that is 
nécessaire to emotionally charge each painting. The creation of a painting is a long process, which the artist describes as a struggle. His technique contrasts a raw universe with the smooth, glazed side of the varnish. He uses the glazing technique (transparency) using tissue paper, then comes the successive layers of acrylic glaze and varnish to which he mixes natural pigments or living matter (earth, coal, ash etc.). Each of them is sanded, or left in its raw state. In geometric framings, characters and prints, the first steps of a writing, and monotype screen in colour or black, seem to emerge from memory, permanently recomposed by the gesture of the brush or the material. His work consists of several series with the advantage of highlighting Laurent DAVIGNY's approach and method. We are therefore struck by the strong symbolic present in his paintings, the relationship between monotype and matter, movement and imprint, make his painting a particular art to suggest the figurative in movement integrated into an unreal, more abstract setting.... You have to enter Laurent DAVIGNY's world through several doors, depending on his mood, his culture or his instinct.