JEAN PHILIPPE LAGOUARDE

In his compact Parisian studio, Jean-Philippe Lagouarde creates unique pieces of a highly unpredictable nature.

The self-taught artist witnesses a tangible rhythm and constant evolution of reality through an ascetic process. Using a box cutter, he slices thousands of thin strips of dyed blotting paper and adheres them contiguously on a frame. This slow, precise, and repetitive process, which produces random results and endless variations, is at the heart of his method. The blotting paper, an intrinsically unstable and fragile medium, invites the unknown and gives a dynamic nature to each of his works, constantly affected by light, air, and time.

There is no aesthetic intent at the origin of Lagouarde’s practice; it is, above all, a work about the imperfection that the artist seeks by inviting in the unknown, even up to his choice of colors and their potential instability, or in the way he creates his inks around a specific location.

When creating, Lagouarde has no result in mind. He follows a blind work process; his only intention is to create an interaction within and from the medium. Like a discreet wanderer, he knows when to step away. He aims to limit traces of his intervention, giving autonomy to his medium as early as possible and letting it continue its natural lifecycle with minimal disruption.

His only intention is to reveal and release, to create and then let go. In his words: “By being detached, we get closer to the divine, which we summon by expressing nature. To see something being born, I fade away.