DEADEND Rasputin
A young self-taught painter, Deadend developed a taste for visual arts at a very young age. Following his meeting with AM1 he put aside drawing to devote himself solely to painting.
Over the years his style will evolve, using a vision of
composition and gestures close to the brutalist movement and the post-second war scene, he will exacerbate the dreamlike and acerbic side of his paintings to create unreal frescoes serving as a backdrop to everyday issues.
Like his reference models (Bacon, Guston, Chagall), he will little by little focus on the youth of his time to talk about their attempts to understand contemporary social phenomena and the way in which they have repercussions on them, particularly at the level psychic, and talk about the mental condition, a subject which according to him is not considered a priority in France.
To best explain the goal of my artistic practice the simplest thing is to explain to you the meaning of my signature, this alias that I have carried with me since I started painting, a little over 5 years ago now. .
DEADEND like RASPUTIN are the names of two characters who had a profound impact on me.
They are quite similar in their construction, self-proclaimed and assumed villain, one protagonist of his series, the second recurring antagonist, they seek to live their lives freely, without any attachment, whether moral or physical.
Considered abnormal, borderline, deranged, sociopathic or even psychopathic, they stand out with a beauty of their own, created from this marginality with which they are overwhelmed, transforming this suffering into such a singular pride.
They become anti-heroes, magnificent losers.
In my paintings I draw inspiration from this force to create a story conducive to talking about these marginalized people that I see every day, those of my neighborhood, of my city, of my encounters, of my daily life.
I use devils, demons, ghosts and other dreamlike figures to reveal this hidden beauty, to grow them and magnify this aura that strikes me in them.
They allow me to transform a crackhead into a rockstar, a teenager lost in a chaotic political world into a radiant, flamboyant emissary.
The second use of this bestiary is that you can project yourself, appropriate this space and these figures to slip in your fears, your anxieties, your memories, everything that can echo a reflection that is specific to you, face it and why not understand them.
All the affection I have for these people who consume life body and soul is put into my work, and it’s not about to stop!
The AOKIGAHARA collective
The AOKIGAHARA collective brings together 5 members of young artists from the emerging Parisian scene who share a common sensitivity to art in various forms. One of the collective’s main manifestos is based on the fact that art is above all a means of conveying a message through media in accordance with the artist’s sensitivity.
Painting, music, cinema, writing are governed and delimited by their respective codes, allowing the viewer to be reached according to their sensitivity, what really differentiates two works of art is the thought expressed through them. Following this principle, the musical part of the collective is intrinsically linked to the visual domain, each artist in the collective has their own way of understanding the world in which they evolve and expresses it in a unique way, with their own references and reflections to fuel the questioning which is found in his work.
The collective results from this friendship, allowing its different visions and forms of expression to coexist to create an artistic emulsion beneficial to each of its members.
Thus through discussion and a critical and constructive look, each person’s work is nourished by a different approach which is intended above all to be objective, leaving room for the free will of the artist. This desire to come together and join an artistic space that is their own, by living common experiences on societal subjects left abandoned, allowed them to join a new, totally independent scene, acting with its own codes and way of thinking, freed from any inclusive shackles of classical systems forged by schools.
The fact that they are all self-taught results from their desire to emancipate themselves from these systems and to evolve according to the codes of the alternative scene, without ever being closed to meetings and dialogues, they want to express themselves through of places and people able to understand their messages, without any censorship.
