The following text was provided by the gallery: Jean-Philippe Lagouarde’s first exhibition in the United States.
The exhibition explores the relationship between space, time, and color. The artist focuses on using blotting paper, which allows ink to seep through and reveal hypnotic, minimalist compositions.
His slow, precise, repetitive technique, yielding unpredictable results, is at the heart of his process. The blotting paper absorbs the ink, finds its shape, and the color emerges. Then, he arranges the elements, placing them contiguously along the edge and framing everything in a thin wooden border.
In these monochrome works, Jean-Philippe Lagouarde subtly questions the viewer’s perception. The horizon line evokes our wandering gaze, searching for an anchor point in these works that seem limitless, except for the boundaries imposed by the frame. We seek symmetry between the two surfaces, which appear rigorously ordered, the blotting paper lines meticulously assembled, allowing light to flood in and reveal the intensity of the color.
