François Marcadon

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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