Fantasy Islands or "Les paradis imaginaires" is a set of imaginary places hand-made with sumi ink on Xuan paper, using... Read More
Fantasy Islands or "Les paradis imaginaires" is a set of imaginary places hand-made with sumi ink on Xuan paper, using the Japanese technique of "floating ink" : suminagashi.
This work reflects on the Western gaze on islands and how people always overlay a certain fantasy on them being "paradise on earth" and "dream-like".
These paintings I make are here to fill the thirst people have for "discovery" by generating waves of them. It uses the pareidolia effect to create islands, atolls and bits of land.
The technique used, and the medium it's made on, are meant to feed this fiction/narrative by giving it a deceitful feeling of old and foreign.
My work is often a play on deceiving people's nurture and their expectations. Here I use ink to rise islands on the surface of this flat paper, whereas on another work, I wipe places off of 3D maps using white paint.