Ice Surfer, 2018

Eugène Barricade   Emerging artists

Eugène Barricade was born in Paris in 1966.

Discovered at the age of 16 by his drawing teacher, he quit elementary school to study Graphic Arts at the Rue Madame School of Paris, during 3 years.

During the day he normally concentrated, learned and grasped everything it was possible to learn. Classes of spray gun, typography, perspectives, history of art become his daily routine but during the night he practiced his art in the undergrounds of Paris, choosing the Catacombs as his favorite location.

His first tags and first graffiti works were a revelation! Very soon he became fascinated with the work of old artists, that were still visible in the streets of Paris. The stencil of Mistic, Blek le Rat and Speedy Graphito led him to explore into this new technique which he was not familiarized with: from that moment on, stencil became his mode of expression.

In parallel, he began working as an advertising storyboard artist, for the main advertising agencies of Paris, which he successfully did during more than 15 years, putting on the side, but not without regrets, his passion for the world of Street Art, which started since his youth. In 2011, he decided to leave everything and settled in the South of France, where he created his own workshop in Uzès, finally finding again the freedom he felt when he was 16.

Today, he works mostly on atypical and urban supports using the stencil technique. He likes to transform objects into unique and surprising pieces. His quirky humor gives us an ironic vision of today's society.

Using and abusing the aesthetic and graphic codes specific to advertising, Eugène Barricade uses the imagery of popular culture in a playful and poetic way.