Three artists, three trajectories, three distinct approaches to gesture.
The IMPULSIONS exhibition brings together SHOE, SUNSET, and ONESIKER, major figures on the international urban art scene, united by a shared pulse: that of the body, the letter, and emotion.
Niels “SHOE” Meulman, a pioneer of European graffiti, originally from Amsterdam, fused calligraphy and graffiti, inventing the Calligraffiti movement, which has since become a global phenomenon. In 2007, he held his first exhibition under this movement's name, giving birth to an aesthetic where the word becomes gesture, and the gesture, abstraction. His current work breaks free from the constraints of lettering to explore an intuitive pictorial gestural language, poised between balance and chaos, where the brushstroke is as important as the gesture itself.
SUNSET, a Swiss artist born in Paris, has been developing a unique visual language based on writing since the late 1990s. Blending calligraphic influences, graffiti, poetry, and abstract art, he layers often indecipherable words, creating intense visual rhythms adorned with lyrical gestures. For Sunset, writing is not a message to be read, but a vibration to be felt. His works become territories of emotion, nourished by the density, repetition, and spontaneity of the line. Featured in numerous international collections and exhibitions, he pursues an artistic exploration of highlighting the sign and the impulse of the gesture, between control and chaos.
ONESIKER, finally, embodies an essential figure in vandal graffiti. Born in Saigon and arriving in France at the age of five, he made Toulouse his canvas. Founder of the legendary South Painters store in 1999, he has influenced an entire generation of urban artists. On canvas, he transposes the raw energy of the street into abstract and intimate compositions. Deconstructing his own tags, he extracts forms that he transforms into visual pulses. For Onesiker, each work is an inner echo, a heartbeat spray-painted. The tension between spontaneity and control, between pain and beauty, gives birth to a sincere, urgent, visceral painting.
IMPULSIONS is a sensitive exploration of abstract written forms, expressive gestures, and profound silences. An exhibition like a collective heartbeat, where three artists translate into painting what deeply animates them: calligraphic abstraction.
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