PARIS | Les Arts dessinés

7 > 30 Apr 2022

Presentation

From 7 to 30 April 2022, the Les Arts Dessinés gallery is delighted to be showing work by the Ensaders collective - Yann Bagot, Kevin Lucbert and Nathanaël Mikles. The 28 drawings in this retrospective have been made using a range of media: ink, pencil, colour crayon, spray paint, graphite, gouache, watercolour and biro. Some are collaborative pieces, others solo works.

The three artists met in 2003 at the ENSAD (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs) art school in Paris. As friends and artistic associates, the trio produce collaborative works that involve drawing simultaneously on one and the same support, in either a workshop or a live performance setting.

Their images are made up of a plethora of individual elements, combined in such a way that it becomes hard to distinguish the specific contribution made by each artist. This unusual approach enables them to reflect contemporary reality with just the right degree of critical distance and to tackle profound themes with the lightest of touches - the position of the individual in today's world (?Nous ne sommes pas seuls?), for example, his or her relationship with the environment (?Les sales chimistes? and ?Every landscape is a tragedy?) and the shameless exploitation of human beings, the earth and its resources (?Nous venons en paix?).

The Ensaders style is reminiscent of M. C. Escher's architectural motifs and labyrinthine structures, Hervé Di Rosa's colourful dreamlike compositions and elements of what we might describe as ?low-brow art? - reinterpreting the conventions of so-called popular media, such as comic strip, graffiti, advertising and animated film.

The creations of the Ensaders collective are regularly the focus of publications and exhibitions in France and the rest of Europe, and the public are invited to share the trio's original approach to making art through workshops and interactive installations, the Louvre Museum, Louis Vuitton Foundation and Georges Pompidou Centre all having hosted such events.

Private view: Thursday 14 April from 6pm to 9pm, in the presence of the artists.

Works available to view online from Thursday 7 April 2022.