Fabrice Samyn

This work by Fabrice Samyn is part of the series ‘Burning is Shining’, also known as ‘Feu l’icône en feu’. The first title quotes the poet John Giorno, who reminds us that one must burn in order to shine, and accept death and the invisible in order to live fully in the visible. The second title, meanwhile, reflects the artist’s interest in issues of iconoclasm and idolatry. The work is a solid pine panel, measuring approximately 25 x 30 cm and finished with gold leaf, which was subsequently charred. Gold is a sacred symbol, a reference to Byzantine art, but its extraction is also a source of ecological disaster. Here, the precious metal is paired with pine wood, a raw, relatively ‘poor’ material that echoes the natural resources we must now preserve. Nature, a new icon to be glorified rather than destroyed. Samyn’s fascination with capturing immaterial phenomena can also be seen in the tradition of Yves Klein’s ‘fire’ paintings, which, in the 1960s, sought to give form to the revelatory potential of art.

This translation has been automatically generated by DeepL.