Deux ombres de souris longent les vagues, 2017
Philippe Azema

A path that sinks into the belly of the form. Reflection on the work of Philippe Azema A total inability to perceive the universe as homogeneous The universe of Philippe Azema is the spontaneity of forms, the contortion of colors, the unpredictability of the composition, it is from the first look, the audacity of originality. An originality, both original and original, because his totally innovative and unique work finds its roots in the origins of art, at a time when men practiced the religion of art, understood as a symbolic restitution of reality . Azema does not look for the original in a predetermined way. However, can we say that he has a specific knowledge of the history of art, its conditioning, tastes, styles and therefore that he does not enter into the outsider art? On the contrary, employed in a farm, we are in the presence of a self-taught artist, whose drawings reveal a total freedom of expression, an anarchy of composition. He is an artist whose art is the expression of the search for oneself in the world around him. There is in his attitude like abandonment, far from any search for prospects, or of an artificial yield of light. Here, everything is given by the coupling of the colors between them. Three tones: red, yellow and black guide the construction of his "worlds", like a mystical color blind, who would take the viewer away from reality. The shapes seem engraved on the background, timeless traces of his unconscious. How not to think of the primordial forms of prehistory, born around the fire of the cave, at the time of rest, of abandonment to one's unconscious. Obviously, we are approaching here the origins of artistic creation. Azema, at the heart of brut art, succeeds in finding a dimension of the spirit located in a time when man used art as a means towards the other, towards excess, beyond all limits. Outsider art artists, as I have already had the opportunity to underline in my writing for the exhibition “Contour Line, Different Creativity” consider art as a daily prayer to be made in the privacy of one's own. daily space. A stomach art. Therapy. If, art is understood here as a daily exercise, we move away from the nature of the artist, in favor of something that must be learned. In this way, the outsider art approaches official art, because there is a technique that must be acquired. But outsider art does not concern style or trend, but more, a preliminary condition: art as the language of knowledge, first towards oneself (it is daily exercise, a constant whispering to inside oneself) then towards others. In outsider art, this knowledge is acquired, not through a cultural or logical contribution, but is essentially based on the fantastic and the imaginary, sublimated by a reality which is similar to the intimate life of artists. In the dynamics of outsider art, it is not the cognitive object that is important, but the action to get there. For the official contemporary artist, art is one language among others with which it is advisable to constantly exchange. For the outsider artist, the language of art is the only way to understand the world and results from a physiological need. In art brut or outsider, the artist unloads his own pathology in his work, and forces the spectator to measure himself with it. To better understand this relationship between man and object, we can refer to the thought of Merleau-Ponty, on phenomenology, when he affirms: "to think is to seek the originary". In this case, the French philosopher wants to affirm that it is not quite simply a question of analyzing the way of being of an organism in the world, but of seeking, more radically, how consciousness constitutes a world. The world is not an external object to be measured but the result of a deep interaction between man and his environment. The world is not placed artificially in front of the subject, but it is born with the subject. So, if we consider that in outsider art, it is not the object that is important but the action to get there, we should focus not only on the image in the work but on everything movement of the body that produced it. The gesture is part of the work and the work represents a moment of openness to the world “getting lost is certainly pleasant and atrocious” FTMarinetti (Venezianella e Studentaccio 2013) Why the original can be original? When I indicate that Azema's painting comes from the pathology of being, it is already a reference to the origin of being (the pathology cannot belong to someone who does not does not exist) The condition with which man hears the world is already an original way of hearing, because it is in the perception of the senses that individuality emerges It is on the other hand in the journey towards the other , that the community is created. As far as outsider artists are concerned, the search for a link with the other does not exist, to varying degrees. For outsiders, artists of the fantastic and the imaginary, it is by talking to oneself that the creative act develops. The only possibility of communication is to enter this world where we have to understand that the origin is heard in an absolutely original way. Marcello Francolini