Clément Poplineau at Stems Gallery

Artist: Clément Poplineau

Exhibition title: Le Bruit & l’Odeur

Venue: Stems Gallery, Brussels, Belgium

Date: June 3 – July 1, 2023

Photography: all images courtesy of the artist and Stems Gallery, Brussels

Inside museums and galleries, we are right where we belong.

On the occasion of his very first solo show, “Le Bruit & l’Odeur” at Stems Gallery, Clément Poplineau didn’t come alone: his close friends and family members are the main subjects of his paintings. Having graduated from the Brussels School of Fine Arts three years ago, he fearlessly plays with contrasts in his figurative paintings with baroque accents.

Here, he concludes his series of canvases depicting the suburbs and their inhabitants. Using his provocative and hyper-realistic brushwork, the painter wants to be a witness for this social reality. In 1991, former French president Jacques Chirac spoke out about the smell and the noise (le bruit et l’odeur) as legitimate reasons for French citizens to hate non-white workers. Therefore, the painter appropriates the insult, making for his diverse entourage tailor- made canvases.

When depicting those daily life scenes, the young artist also adeptly navigates the codes of western pictorial art introducing his loved ones as religious icons straight out of the late Renaissance. A carmine red sweatshirt that seems to have been dyed with cochineal, a jacket, blue as the robes of French kings—the subjects are magnified, elevated to the status of a contemporary nobility.

Throughout Clément Poplineau’s paintings, exudes an urgent need to tell one’s own story without intermediaries, in order to silence the caricature and as a reminder of how complex it is to face the dilemmas brought by precariousness. Banknotes in a baby’s hands and BNP Paribas ATMs—what could be more anti-bourgeois than speaking about money with such unabashed frankness? While others take the mic to deliver their message, Clément Poplineau creates a gallery of disruptive scenes, where a mugging can initiate an epic odyssey and rolling a joint can become a sacred gesture. Always with the underlying risk of reproducing stereotypes, Clément Poplineau’s paintings thrive on the paradoxes of representation.

Clément Poplineau’s gesture is primarily one of loyalty. He celebrates this group of «bicraveurs, braqueurs et taulards» (dealers, robbers, and inmates), who are also his friends, his subjects, and artists in their own right. Consciously appropriating the visual vocabulary of suburban violence, Clément Poplineau invests all his energy in a restorative approach, diligently ensuring to give credit where credit is due, without ever needing to justify himself.

– Marouane Bakhti

Clément Poplineau, Le Bruit & l’Odeur, 2023, exhibition view, Stems Gallery, Brussels

Clement Poplineau, St J, 2023, Low relief carving, stamp on 100g haschich wafer, 9 x 6 x 1,5 cm., 3 ½ x 2 ½ x ½ in., With Frame 28 x 32 x 5 cm., 11 x 12 ½ x 2 in

Clement Poplineau, Scène Nocturne (Travail de Nuit) (work in progress), 2023, Oil on canvas, 150 x 100 x 4 cm., 59 x 39 ½ x 1 ½ in.

Clement Poplineau, Lights, 2023, oil on canvas, 100 x 75 x 4 cm., 39 ½ x 29 ½ x 1 ½ in.

Clement Poplineau, Le 7, 2023, oil on canvas, 100 x 70 x 4 cm., 39 ½ x 27 ½ x 1 ½ in

Clement Poplineau, LES FRAUDEURS, 2023, Oil on canvas, 160 x 160 x 4 cm., 63 x 63 x 1 ½ in

Clement Poplineau, ISSAM, 2023, oil on canvas, 65 x 50 x 4 cm., 25 ½ x 19 ½ x 1 ½ in.

Clement Poplineau, PLAN B “scène de braquage”, 2023, oil on canvas, 160 x 160 x 4 cm., 63 x 63 x 1 ½ in.

Clement Poplineau, SANS EU, 2022, oil on canvas, 195 x 130 x 4 cm., 77 x 51 x 1 ½ in

Clement Poplineau, Modèle (portrait de deux freres), 2022, Oil on canvas, 70 x 100 x 4 cm., 27 ½ x 39 ½ x 1 ½ in.

Clement Poplineau, A l’Arraché, 2022 oil on canvas, 150 x 100 x 4 cm., 59 x 39 ½ x 1 ½

Clement Poplineau, 1000 B / Appartenance, 2022, Oil on canvas, 100 x 70 x 4 cm., 39 ½ x 27 ½ x 1 ½ in.

Clement Poplineau Clement Poplineau, La Vocation, 2021, Oil on canvas, 50 x 40 x 2,5 cm., 19 ½ x 16 x 1 in., With Frame 63 x 53 x 5 cm., 25 x 21 x 2 in.