Totem, 2018

Fabien Verschaere   Famous Artists

Work reproduced in the catalog of the exhibition "Listen to my eyes" presented from October 25 to November 17, 2018 at the Brugier-Rigail Gallery, p.42. The exhibition catalog is offered with the work. Extracts from the text by Jean-Christophe Claude published in the exhibition catalog: "At the moment when Fabien Verschaere's work passes through you, it never leaves you. Even if it means superimposing the images of different works seen here and there to offer your imagination its own assembly of creatures, objects, like a memory. Depending on the singularity of your desires, centers of interest, obsessions, fantasies, mood of the moment, it will be like a shamanic dance of 'where an inevitable round of figures emerges that will take hold of your mind. See no malice, no madness, Fabien Verschaere invites us to share his life, invites us to his table. Compulsive worker, he can achieve thirty drawings in succession, a bit like the automatic writings of the surrealists. No premeditation in these works, no preparatory sketches, no predefined intentions, but a need to create, in order not to sink, to live, to exceed. [...] From its origins Flemish, resurface the phantasmagorical worlds of Hieronymus Bosch, the terror of Edward Munch. From his studies at the Beaux-Arts, he retains a deep fascination for the great old and modern masters. If Bacon, Morandi, Opalka, Matisse are his referents, Picasso - in his tireless quest for new techniques, new processes - obsesses him, just like Giacometti who makes sculpture because he does not know how to do so in order to explore unknown territories. A fascination is also born for the artistic commitment of Joseph Beuys, a former airplane pilot during the Second World War. Beuys owes its survival to the fireproof felt of its burning cabin. He will make it the main material of his artistic work. For Fabien Verschaere, it is obvious, the line applied with a felt-tip pen or a brush will be the basis of his language. "