Kraken goes Freewheeling, or the Art of displacement

Place to place,

space to space, body to body, thought to thought, emotion to emotion… since the beginning, Kraken has crossed territories: all territories. The territories of emotion and thought, those of dreaming and imagination, but also the material territories of the city and the urban space.

The city

as a huge playground, but also the city in dialogue with the workshop. The city and its flows, the city and its axes and bifurcations, the city and its inhabitants and their movements, the city and its rhythms, the city with its sounds and cadences.

But also the workshop,

with its solitude, with its silence, with its rhythm and breathing. The workshop, the space and time of the intimate and private, where the effervescence of the artist’s projects takes shape, where the production gently takes place or abruptly arises…

Masterfully

and as an undisputed master of the gesture and the line, tracing his octopuses in different formats, and drawing his portraits of familiar objects and characters from everyday life, in perpetual motion, Kraken links together public and private spaces, joyfully moving from the fresco to small formats: from the intimate to the monumental.

Therefore,

After La Fête à Lallement at galerie épisodique, a-topos’ invites the artist again and offers him to play on and with its multiple dimensions. And that is why, today at poush, he is displaying a new immersive parkour, made of an installation of aluminum cans and glass bottles, plastic garbage bags, drawings of silhouettes and bodies, a miniature golf course and vaguely kitschy, completely outlandish prizes to be won.

Tirelessly,

Kraken deploys his axes and reaffirms the diversity of his practices, without obliterating any of them, without giving one up in favor of another. In doing so, he is leading his artistic fights on all fronts and, again and again, continues to affirm the graphical focuses of his production: space, the game, playfulness and mischief, a strong line, a precise drawing, solid and intense blocks of color, endless variations on his recurring motifs. And his name, in capital letters.

Determined,

the artist unfolds his galleries of portraits, like a beautiful directory, like a ruthless inventory scrolling by, listing bodies, often naked (or close to naked), bodies often extremely disproportioned, outside the norms, flirting with a pornographic (or close to pornographic) Eros, wearing thongs or tight T-shirts. And faces whose eyes often ignore us. Or stare at us, both mocking and sad…

And always,

dogs, everywhere. Mommy’s little doggies, tiny poodles groomed and combed, with bows in their hair, with pearl necklaces around their necks or wearing little red fezzes, short-haired chihuahuas, long-haired Yorkies or Maltese, like so many mirror images of their owners.

But also

objects, banal everyday things, garbage of all kinds on every street corner, aluminum cans, glass bottles, shopping carts, the traces of the only activity of those who are getting older, pieces of pap er and plastic bags. Drawn observations, like so many findings on the trivial and sometimes ridiculous dimension of our here and now.

Acerbic, efficient

but intensely tender, with infinite gentleness, Kraken creates a tremendous human comedy and, showing us his alleged monsters, who fascinate or repel us, he holds up a mirror to us, in which we recognize ourselves, but also the Other.

Then, masterfully, as an undisputed master of the gesture and the line, echoing Barnett Newman, Kraken tells us that the painter was indeed here: before the philosopher.

Text by Gaya Goldcymer, December 2021