ARTISTS

Li Chevalier

Zhu Hong

Ilsun Maeng

Takesada Matsutani

Jiang Dahai

"The black flame, a desire that overwhelms and animates humanity.

It blinds us. We are constantly trapped in this desire and dissatisfaction." Li Chevalier

The Feux de joie has taken many meanings over time. Symbol of fertility, rebirth, celebration of light or moments of happiness, it takes on many of the principles addressed by artists.

Gallery 208 presents 5 artists, Takesada Matsutani, Li Chevalier, Jiang Dahai, Zhu Hong and Ilsun Maeng.

The artists produce their work through fire or through the action of fire on the materials they use to create.

Zhu Hong creates glass water drops and plays with paradox to create "Seine". An ode to light where the drops of water are born of fire. She creates landscapes at the limit of abstraction, where reflections, movements and poetry intermingle to give way to the contemplative magic of the moment.

Ink is also born from fire. It is the latter which allows the transformation of the ink, to provide a black of an extreme depth where one can easily feel the heat of its creation. It is not a hard black, but a warm black, full of power and wisdom, strong of several millennia of history. The ink comes from dead leaves.

"It is in the wild fire that the next spring is born" Chinese proverb

Jiang Dahai and Li Chevalier use Indian ink to create landscapes of great intensity, alternating between poetry, power and torment.

Ilsun Maeng draws with charcoal his series "Objects". Resulting from the charring of willow branches, the charcoal echoes her other serie