YOHAN EPAIN

Sulla sua Arte

Overseas childhood revisited

After devoting the first part of my life to abstract painting, I have renewed my origins in 2020 through the figurative series "Landscapes of childhood" which echoes my life on the island of Réunion, from my 9th to my 21st birthday. My arrival on the island of the ocean Indian, at 9 years old, after living in Châtellerault, France, was for me a great upheaval : landscapes, colours, smells, lights, lush flora and fauna… Nothing was close to the surroundings of my first childhood.

These paintings or panels painted with acrylic are some «flashback». Lights, smells and flashing memories have resurfaced, perhaps as a reaction post-traumatism of lockdowns. This unprecedented period of quarantine has proven to be conducive to analysis and retrospective. It was the trigger of my “deeper unconscious repressed”. These are above all the landscapes of Reunion that come back to me today - mountains, hills, circuses, lush vegetation, bright colors -,. My paintings also manifest a strange feeling of uncertainty and insecurity that was marked my youth where this beautiful nature can be also a source of danger: archaic refuge where we had to isolate ourselves face cyclones, ravines streaming after tropical storms, desolate landscapes of petrified lava and black rocks on the slopes of volcano…
I let myself be carried away by my brushes and use all kinds of materials for my supports: plywood panels from the ends of the earth, reflecting the distance that separates me from my island; linen canvases or even paint pallets transformed into works of art. If my appetite could lead me to large formats (100 x 81 cm most often), I also indulge in small formats (30 x 23 or 15 x 15 cm)
As in my abstract period, I practice "Runoff games" using syringes whose contents I empty onto the canvas, letting the liquid flow as it pleases, digging gullies here and there on the paint. They are a bit of a trademark for me, initiated during my training at the Beaux-Arts in Marseille. In the series "Childhood Landscapes", they perhaps with reason symbolise the "glass ceiling" broken between my memories, alternately idealised or obscured, and the real perception I have had of them thirty years later.

La sua Biografia

Born in Châtellerault (France, near Poitiers) in 1976, I flew to the Reunion island at the age of 9, after my parents' divorce. I spent ten years in this France lots in the Indian Ocean, full of its marvelous ethnic, cultural, geographical and climatic contrasts... And of its surprising colours.

After my high school diploma, I entered the School of Fine Arts in Reunion where I met Henri Maillot, creator of the famous “Vénus au livre”. Then I returned to France to follow the course of the Beaux-Arts.

Influenced by Rothko or Jackson Pollock, my acrylic painting is lost in waters, transparencies and lights. And the colors dominate.

Trained at the School of Fine Arts and Design of Marseille Méditerranée, I have never stopped painting since my diploma in 2000. My key words : color, acrylic, canvas or panel, abstraction or figuration, contemporary inspiration or back to basics in my current series "Childhood Landscapes" which I have been deploying since 2020. My specificity : "water games" which draw lines, networks or breaks according to each person's interpretation, on my canvases. My works are visible on Linkedin, Instagram, and soon on my blog, or physically in Châtellerault (France). My favorite format : canvases of 100 cm by 80 cm.

Il suo Curriculum

Summary

Artist-painter graduated since 2000, I participated in several group exhibitions in France (Poitiers, Île-d'Oléron, Paris, Marseille...) but also in Montreal, at the Kajaani fair in Finland, in Bruges and Cologne. I am now seeking to make my painting better known and to establish contacts with gallery owners, managers of exhibitions, museums, artistic associations...

Experience

Plastic artist September 2000 - Present (22 years 4 months)

Chatellerault, France

Technician and order picker

September 2000 - Present (22 years 4 months)

Various jobs in industry and logistics: order picker, forklift operator, storekeeper, quality control technician in haute couture, logistics, aeronautics, etc. (Safran, Armor, Aigle, Coop Atlantique, Distri-Faq…)

Training Marseille Mediterranean School of Art and DesignCertificate of higher studies in plastic arts (CESAP), Art, art studies, general - September 1998 - September 2000) Reunion School of Fine Arts Certificate of plastic arts studies (CEAP), Art, art studies, general - September 1996 - September 1998 Bras-Panon high school (Reunion)Vocational baccalaureate Studies, organization and management of works (EOGT), Construction management - September 1994 - September 1996 Moufia high school (Reunion)BEP construction and topography, Construction management - September 1992 - September 1994