Philippe Favier - Les Baleines bleues

Les baleines bleues. Behind this exotic title hides Philippe Favier’s new series: a sort of walk, an amused wander around an item generally absent in the contemporary art world, the bra. Behind its deceitfully naughty reference, the series is mainly an exploration of form and material. The bra is here reduced to a mere heap, or more precisely, a transparent pattern on a white or black screenprinted background. Transparent and negative, this pattern becomes the medium for diverse collages the artist varies from one piece to another. Made of laces, pieces of female garments and paint highlights, with their arabesques and preciosity, the collages become pattern within the pattern, like infinite variations that oppose the beauty of the material to the mattness of screenprint.

Can we talk about originals for this 24 edition series? Probably; such is the time that the artist spent on each edition, refining the golden bronze reflections of the hemstitched lace or piling up taffetas to create fine transparency effects. These original pieces complete the work on glass Phillipe Favier had started in the 1990s and almost abandoned since then.