BLINDAGE 231 and BLINDAGE 232

The two works in the « Blindage » series, presented as part of the « Fairy Tales » exhibition at CASSTL in Antwerp (Belgium), go to the heart of the deepest origins of this series. Their almost subconscious images are reminiscent of fairy tales told to children to stimulate their imagination, or told to themselves as adults to better control their behavior or emotions. The greater the inner resources, the greater the capacity to adapt later. For the survivor of the future, dropping down the hole to follow the run of Alice’s rabbit is a conceivable form of healthy falling.  

Soldiers – or hunters in myths, tales and legends – symbolize protection. The weapon holder dominates and controls, and consequently reassures, like the parental presence. As soon as this one proves to be failing in the eyes of the child, this parallel symbolic presence is all the more essential in front of its permanent needs to feel protected and in safety. Here idealized through military iconography, this vital phenomenon of protection and its principle of mental construction reflects a primary necessity during the first years of the child – and then for the adult throughout his life – to enter, to form and to train to survive in a perpetually hostile world. And this is because of the inherent difficulties of identity, socialization, and communication in the face of latent barbarism or cognitive decline. 

The mechanical structures around the two characters function as shields. They are elaborated from elements of tanks, jet engines or aeronautical fuselages. Their hard and solid representation – though chaotic and unstructured – resonates here as a subconscious construction. Imperfect and transient, the illusion will only work until the next update. 

The set of characters + mechanical structures operates like the practice of bodybuilding, hypertrophy after hypertrophy, like Tetsuo’s tragic end in Akira. The race to increase our own capacities or to acquire new performing options reflects our permanent desire for seduction and acceptance, first towards our parents, then within the framework of the world of work and the relational network – a form of declaration of inner war whose two antagonistic poles are the quest for recognition and its ineluctable dissatisfaction.

The spectral aspect of the pictorial treatment of the works questions the tangibility of the subject. The metallic renderings appear and fade away, mimicking the erasure and disappearance of the child’s only strength: innocence.