••˜\ˆ˘ˆ ^\_ (MOIRÉE, LA SURFACE)

Venturing beyond the hierarchical components of painting, Niels Trannois, as a painter, stands out for the singularity of his modus operandi. Not interested by auto reflexive bias, he rather explores territories beyond paintings to let them penetrate and enrich the very pictorial gesture. Taking language as a starting point, words, glyphs and the importance of their shape, as significant stimuli, he sets up connections between his writings, considered as preliminary drawings (see his catalog “drawings”), and pictorial language of which his artworks are made. As an extension of this literary impulse, he explores the poetic dimension of the material constituting his paintings, where chromatic fluids affect the canvas, intertwine and sweat, soaking it in an organic manner.

His works are therefore devoid of preconceived schemes to let themselves carried by fluid’s movement, coincidences, reactions caused by impregnation and extraction. A sense of floating originates from the ongoing uncertainty and nothing from the process can reveal what the result will be, if there were ever the need to achieve anything. Indeed the notion of finitude does not occur in Niels Trannois’ work, for his evocating titles already initiate the upcoming work. The heaviness of the pictorial matter disappears here in favor of lightness, sensitivity and evanescence of sensations, floating notions he tries to encapsulate.

Through ··˜\ˆ˘ˆ ^\_ (moirée, la surface), the artist interprets components of Bunraku theatre in a deconstructive manner. Items in the exhibition all originate from an industrial crafting process that the artist enhances by reworking them manually, and by introducing a « ghost », a foreign presence coming to dwell those elements. A dressed puppet, of which the pose is inspired by a sequence of the Bunraku play Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami¹, is perched on a low wall, the usual fluidity of its movements marks a pause. We call « ningyo » Bunraku’s puppets that, unlike those with strings, do not fall under the effect of gravity: they are propped up and tend toward elevation.

Strings are thus inoperative. They stand instead as cables that draw a score on the wall and where one can read the stigma of the « ningyo’s » passing. They punctuate the space with traces of their passage, propping up modelling of long-lasting images.

A mental image of the moiré effect is therefore signified. It lies between what is left on and what is hanged. So is the case for the paintings on silkscreen’s silk, mounted on aluminum caissons, of which the back led to collaboration between Niels Trannois and graphic designer Emmanuel Crivelli: this collaboration overcomes aesthetic codes set up by the artist to anchor artworks within the time of their exhibition, and makes visible the stigma of their passage at In extenso.

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1 Sugawara Denju Tenarai Kagami (菅原伝授手習鑑) is a japanese bunraku and kabuki theater play jointly written by Takeda Izumi I., Takeda Izumo II., Namiki Sōsuke and Miyoshi Shōraku.

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As part of « Suite », a project initiated by the Centre national des arts plastiques (CNAP), In extenso presents ··˜\ˆ˘ˆ ^\_ (moirée, la surface) an exhibition by Niels Trannois.