François Marcadon
François Marcadon was born in 1981 in Nantes, France. He now lives and works in Brussels, Belgium.
The universe that Marcadon has created is mainly false pretence. Aesthetically elegant, with an intention to please the eye, his works are a blend of bitter and soft and sweet. Under its sugar-coated surface, however, lies a fascinating but unsettling bottom. These fantastic images (successively dream, nightmare and allegory) set up the artist’s personal mythological space that shares with the viewer a dreamlike but cruel sight, not unlike his own ubiquitous laugh - it is unclear whether this laugh is a sign of joy or sarcasm. Marcadon uses the body as his main theme, from where he works its vanity and its lability, as if to recall in one same movement its extraordinary plasticity, its metamorphic potential, and its unconditional finitude: mortality. He multiplies formats and takes full advantage of the ability of paint (watercolour, acrylic, ink) to dissolve. He graphically explores the polymorphic feature of bodies whose diluted consistency enables him to inform all fantasies.
The colour of flesh, emphasised by a joyful and almost childlike pink, should not deceive the viewer: in its crudeness, it strips bare an incarnation from which humanity benefits, but also suffers. Life, dreamed or lived, organic or fantasised, seizes upon the Greek pharmakhon, both a remedy and a poison. Thus, when it is brought back to its dark and undifferentiated silhouette, simply huddled in its shadow that acts as a surface, it symbolically becomes the Cerberus of a funeral chariot, spelling its own demise. Wicked body, dumb body, worried body, Marcadon declines shapes of a mechanism of unconscious projections that call upon the uncontrollable human desire. Like the Lyotardian figural, it reveals on its surface these affects that emerge by informing the bodies.
The drawer’s series of self-portraits are motivated by this same anxiety inducing cheerfulness. In his drawings, he represents a presence that he wants to be discrete (the drawings are untitled as to not affect the experience), while staying cynical. In Marcadon’s works, the body’s irruption is always frozen between threat and promise, like an explosive libidinal potential with golden skin.
Florian Gaité
Formation
2004 - DNSEP option Art, École Supérieure des Beaux-arts, Nantes
Expositions en Solo (sélection)
2023 - Le Trouble, le Double et l'Oubli, with Lucas Seguy, L'Atelier, Nantes
2023 - Il miracolo di Urakawa, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome
2021 - Même les oiseaux ne naissent pas sans tête, Neuf Gallery, Bruxelles
2017 - Ah...L’Amour ! L’Orangerie, Bastogne
2016 - Mes petites histoires, Hôtel de ville d’Etterbeek, Bruxelles
2014 - Look and feel your best, MOCA, Taipei
2013 - Golden days, Point Éphémère, Paris
2010 - Welcome to my world, Espace En Cours, Paris
2010 - Bite me #2, Librairie St Hubert, Bruxelles
2008 - Les Vêtements Papiers, La Piscine, Musée d’Art et d’Industrie André Diligent, Roubaix
2008 - Bite me, curator : Régis Perray, Bureau d’Art et de Recherche, Roubaix
2008 - CHU & Salon Triptyque, Hôtel de ville, Angers
Expositions Collectives (sélection)
2022 - ‘Sexy voto’, curated by Eric Rigollaud, Club_24, Lille
2021 - PARTcours, curated by Guy Malevez, Bruxelles
2021 - ‘Der Rattenfänger’, Galerie DuflonRacz, Bruxelles
2019 - Pelgrims’Spirit, Maison Pelgrims, Bruxelles
2019 - En mai, fais ce qu’il te plaît, Centre culturel Jacques Franck, Bruxelles
2018 - PARTcours, parc de Woluwe, curated by Guy Malevez, Bruxelles
2018 - Les tableaux fantômes, La Piscine, Musée d’Art et d’Industrie André Diligent, Roubaix
2018 - À nos desseins, Bureau d’Art et de recherche, Roubaix
2017 - Platform 1, Galerie Allegrarte, Bruxelles
2017 - È carta ! Spazio Mantegna, Milan
2016 - È carta ! Il Torrione, Cassina de’ Pecchi
2016 - Intime moi, Bureau d’Art et de Recherche, Roubaix
2016 - Mondes envisagés, Centre d’Art et du Livre La Fabrique des Colombes, Sainte-Colombe-sur-Gand
2016 - Passages, invitation de l’Académie Royale des Beaux-arts, Galerie du Roi, Bruxelles
2016 - PARTcours, parc Malou, curateur : Guy Malevez, Bruxelles
2015 - ArBAEsAEsbaNM, Galerie de l’Académie Royale des Beaux-arts, Bruxelles
2015 - Chapelle fifteen, Chapelle des Calvairiennes, Mayenne
2015 - Omnia vanitas, Galerie Koma, Mons
2015 - Encore +, invited by Welchrome, Galerie Anne Perré, Rouen
2014 - Encore ! invitation de Welchrome, Boulogne-sur-Mer
2014 - Tresses 13 & 14, curateur : Yves Sabourin, Galerie Made in town, Paris & la Maison des Tresses et lacets, La Terrasse-
sur-Dorlay
2013 - RonchauxRoom, Besançon
2013 - Chat-bite!, Bureau d’Art et de Recherche, Roubaix
2012 - RonchauxRoom, Besançon
2012 - Sacré blanc ! Musée Jean Lurçat et de la tapisserie contemporaine, Angers
2012 - Les Maisons folles, Ronchin
2012 - Blanche est la couleur, curateur : Yves Sabourin, Passage de Retz, Paris
2011 - De l’autre côté du mur, Biennale Watch this space, Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image imprimée, La Louvière
2011 - Dentelles de papier, Cité Internationale de la Dentelle et de la Mode, Calais
2011 - 100 dessins contre la guerre du Vietnam, Komplot, Bruxelles & le Commissariat, Paris
2011 - 3 artistes, Château d’Assas, Le Vigan
2011 - Living room – moquette partout..., invitation de Grégoire Motte, Artconnexion, Lille
2010 - Sur la terre comme au ciel..., Centre d’art contemporain, Pontmain
2009 - Acquisitions, le Ring/artothèque, Nantes
2009 - Papiers Modèles, Salle St Georges, curateur: Françoise Foulon, Mons Art Protects, Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris
2008 - L’art prend l’air, Blockhaus DY10, Nantes
Résidences, Bourses, Collections (sélection)
2019 - Aide à la création, Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles - Séjour à Sapporo et Urakawa (Japon)
2013 - Résidence à la Feng Chia University, Taichung
2011 - Collection du Centre de la Gravure et de l’Image imprimée, La Louvière
2009 - Collection du Ring/artothèque, Nantes
2008 - Résidence au Centre Hospitalier Universitaire, Angers
2007 - Bourse d’aide individuelle à la création, DRAC Pays de la Loire
2007 - Résidence au Village, Bazouges-la-Pérouse Residence au Centre d’art contemporain, Pontmain
