Artist: Renaud Jerez
Exhibition title: Pandæmonium
Curated by: Victorien Soufflet
Venue: KEUR, Paris, France
Date: January 27 – March 10, 2022
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist, KEUR and Crèvecœur
Pandæmonium is the first iteration – the second having taken place in September at the Crèvecoeur gallery – of the set of my obsessions, whims, and fantasies during the Covid-19 pandemic. This cycle of two exhibitions is meant to mark the end of a long episode of depression and use of narcotics, and other prescription drugs. The term Pandæmonium is borrowed from its creator John Milton, who first published it in verse 755 of the first book of his river poem, Paradise Lost, to name the capital of the underworld.
Pandæmonium is a set of three mostly yellow paintings and a black and yellow sculpture. The three paintings are positioned around the sculpture. Painted in yellowish tones and depicting in a naturalistic way the ghostly kings of a lifeless kingdom.
These ectoplasms structure my iconoclastic experiences and diverse pictorial gestures, in a matrix. A private and interior universe of my unconscious drifts.
They are framed in yellow and topped with masks, essentially composed of composite materials, derived from ancient organic materials and compressed in the deep geological layers of the planet where I live.
The three paintings surround the sculpture in the middle, which is reminiscent of a raft, a locomotive or a mushroom. Thus I create a landscape in which the paintings are at once stoic gargoyles, the masked actors of an accusing situation, the toxic and luminous mushroom being the anxious figure adrift.
Renaud Jerez, Pandæmonium, 2022, exhibition view, KEUR, Paris
Renaud Jerez, Pandæmonium, 2022, exhibition view, KEUR, Paris
Renaud Jerez, BioHasard, 2022, Polyurethane, polystyrene, polyethylene EVA, PVC, acrylic resin, pmma setacryl, neon LED, urethane paint, 185 × 119 × 175 cm
Renaud Jerez, BioHasard, 2022, Polyurethane, polystyrene, polyethylene EVA, PVC, acrylic resin, pmma setacryl, neon LED, urethane paint, 185 × 119 × 175 cm
Renaud Jerez, BioHasard, 2022, Polyurethane, polystyrene, polyethylene EVA, PVC, acrylic resin, pmma setacryl, neon LED, urethane paint, 185 × 119 × 175 cm
Renaud Jerez, Essquelette, 2022, Oil, vinyl, acrylic on canvas, artist framing, 214 × 180 cm
Renaud Jerez, Assilence, 2022, Oil, vinyl, acrylic on canvas, artist framing, 234 × 188 cm
Renaud Jerez, Offantome, 2022, Oil, vinyl, acrylic on canvas, artist framing, 210 × 162 cm
Renaud Jerez, Offantome, 2022, Oil, vinyl, acrylic on canvas, artist framing, 210 × 162 cm
Victorien Soufflet , All frustration doesn’t come from excitement, 2022 , PMMA (half of Filtres de subjectivités violet jaune), collage, 40 x 123 cm
