Accipite Manducate & Obsession

Discovering and contemplating one of ROD’s artworks, especially for the first time, is like a summoning, by its aesthetics and the « fragmenting » technic, but also because of its message...

I witness it everyday as I observe visitors in our contemporary art showroom : after having fully observed ROD’s artworks, they eventually move closer to better grasp the technic and get a clearer view of the details of the elements that compose them. The first emotion, generated by the aesthetics, calls upon a questioning...there’s a reason why ROD’s fetish phrase is « the devil is in the detail ». Because, as explained in ROD’s introductory text, he uses aesthetics and his technic like overlapping filters that blur his artwork’s message, make it opaque even; for the purpose of leading us to questioning, but also out of modesty, for some of his artworks reflect the artist’s intimate and personal experiences...

That is the case with « Obsession » and « Accipite Manducate » (take eat), both addressing the topic of dating websites, or more explicitly, the experience of meeting people via internet and the use of this medium; whether it be for sentimental...or carnal reasons.

But, I will say no more : explanatory text of the two artworks, by the artist himself.

« Accipite Manducate »

Still within the thematic associated with my sponsor, of encounters and the quest for love via social networks, here is "Accipite Manducate".

We live in a society in which it is difficult for some to meet new people, because of the urban lifestyle, when, paradoxically, there's never been so many means of socializing; for the most part virtual, before actually confronting the real deal.

The many ways of interacting, via different websites, allows us to diversify the kind of people we meet.

With this artwork, we are in the same vein as mass consumerism, in which men and women are merely bodies...all that counts is the carnal encounter.

Here lies an emotional void, the abyss of feelings.

The longing for "body to body" is a full-fledged slaughter; like mere pieces of meat to be eaten, swallowed, digested and regurgitated.

It's nothing more than looking for immediate pleasure which leads to the loss of one's self and the convictions we may have had.

Here, an immaculately white background, clinical and cold like a slaughterhouse, confronts the carnage of the butcher's block upon which he slices and bones the bloody cuts of meat with precision, embodied by the multiple cubes floating in front of the background.

These cubes are made up of multiple photos taken at the Hua Hin market, where we lived in Thailand. One can easily spot the bowels and intestines in them...

All these guts are mixed with the paintings of Lucian Freud...the painter of naked bodies, potbellies, and the obese, young and old.

The whole creates a voluntary abstraction in which blood red dominates, and gives an attractive, aesthetic appearance to a rather dark subject that calls upon our basic animal and carnivorous instincts. Yet another lie told by one of my creations.

Romanticism ? What for ?

Let's consume.

SEE ARTWORK

« Obsessions »

Always the thematic of the pursuit of love, encounters... Since the realization of an artwork pertains to the artist's deepest intimacy, having been acquainted with dating websites, that is the case here. This meant recreating a universe which I particularly like, in the manner of a tattoo parlour, with recurring elements used in my works such as fabrics, roses... The pursuit of love and the obsessional quest come to clash.

The obsessional quest revives the thematic previously seen with "Accipite Manducate", but with the particularity of the search for a tattooed woman, which is the obsession, and refers to mass consumption in which looks matter most. In contrast, the pursuit of love may be attained, symbolized here by the gold glittered cubes set on a human heart.

In a sea of tattooed bodies and profiles of naked women using the names of goddesses or nymphs, only one matters most and stands out from the rest. The parting of body and mind.

SEE ARTWORK