Patrick Chambon: Tapi dans le divan (Hidden in the couch)
An exhibition of Patrick Chambon’s drawings was held on the premises of the library from May 4th to July 22nd, 2011.
While involved in graphic work based on what the fabric of a carpet, reworked with little motifs forming the elements of its surface, might represent as a narrative thread, and with the Henry James’ text, “The figure in the carpet” in mind, I formed the idea that a painted or drawn carpet might offer both a simple decorative surface and also, for anyone who looked a bit closer, a zone where phantasized and figural scenes were teeming within hidden motifs.
Being interested in the correspondences between this work and the analysis of the unconscious and of certain concepts like uncanniness, I formed my scenes in the carpet based on my own ideas and associations, twisting them by means of anamorphosis so as to conceal them at first sight from the spectator who is in too much of a hurry…
As I am used to letting the influence of the unconscious enter fully into my plastic work, I was soon able to synthesize my project by using the structure of Freud’s couch and his carpet, which represents the key to all this work and onto which my own universe is projected.
Hidden in the fabric by means of anamorphosis, the forms invade the surface, combine or exclude each other, and offer anyone who looks closely a surface on which stories glimpsed unfold and conceal themselves.
Patrick Chambon
crayons de couleurs / pastel /papier, 185 x 145 cm, 2009