Adrien Lucca
Floraison 2
2021
Acrylic paint, pencil and India ink on Schoellershammer Duria 150gr paper
28 × 34 cm
Twenty-six original drawings signed, titled and dated by the artist
Unframed
Floraison 2 [“blooming” in French] is a series of 26 original drawings, each one corresponding to a letter of the French alphabet.
All the works are unique expressions of the same mathematical settings. Their form is based on algorithms that followed a long composition process guided by the principles of variation, non-repetition, and broken symmetry, among others.
These drawings are hybrid productions, partially handmade (the painted areas) and partially produced with a drawing machine (the ink and pencil parts). Nothing was left to chance. The selection of signs, patterns and techniques creates an evolving ensemble of elements that tends towards complexity and then sparseness, just like a living structure that takes root, grows and blossoms before finally withering.
The tints used here cover a large chromatic range whose designation changes widely according to cultures and individuals, between “blue”, “green” and “grey”. It notably refers to the fact that Japanese didn’t make a clear distinction between blue and green until mid-20th century. Even nowadays, 青 [ao] is used to describe a blue shirt or the sky as well as the green light on the road or certain vegetables.
As the title suggests, the series offers various analogies to plant and flower variations, but we can also recognize constellations and stellar motifs, which reflect the artist’s focus on geometry and light, since the beginning of his practice. Among other examples, Floraison 2 is in line with Lucca’s research on stained-glass, which resulted in his work Dentelles de lumière [“Light Lace”] (2018), produced at the Academia Belgica in Rome.
Adrien Lucca's exhibition took place at Keijiban from May 15 to Jun 14, 2021.