SALE, belongs to the "JANUS" series (wood, mirror, acrylic). In our increasingly narcissistic and egocentric world, where one seeks to impose one's individual thought as universal, we die of our limiting beliefs. They lock us into a cultural context, a given language, our personal experience or our prejudices. I activate this reflection through the hijacking of illuminated panels with scrolling messages that can be found in large metropolises such as New York in Times Square, London in Piccadilly Circus or the new ultra-modern districts of Shanghai.
It's about transforming our own individual reality to open up to other knowledge, other senses, other beliefs like this work which is still hesitating to move from 2D to 3D. Each painting is composed of a word of great banality which, taken out of its context, is written in capital letters. The LED, traditionally used, is replaced by mirror circles inlaid in a black background that reflect by fragmentation the voyeur and the space in which he is.
Each word is a French/English homograph, also called "false friends". It must be considered as two sides of the same medal to be observed in its entirety because the meaning and significance of each word varies according to the origin and culture of the viewer. The mirror, paradoxical from its conception (composed of transparency and opacity) is a producer of images and a source of reflection. Its surface invites us to reflect but only has meaning for the eyes that look at it. Used for the care of appearances, its presence is multiplied in societies celebrating self-contemplation, it is no less a window of personal reflection forcing self-knowledge.
Through the observation of one's own image "through" the word, the mirror becomes transparency and invites us into a mental field halfway between seeing and hiding, the beholder and the looked at, the self and the other, the ally and the other. Like a Janus caught between faith in the transparency and transcendence of being on the one hand, and the illusion and disillusionment of appearing on the other, where all truth is relative and where each individual must contribute to determining what is legitimate and what is not.
