Mathieu Ducornau

An atypical artist, he chooses the thread as a privileged medium of his artistic expression.
Whether this thread is mishandled by his sewing machine or it twirls freely to the canvas, like a dripping, the thread is conductive, the revealer of a line, a look, a smile...
On one hand, there are the topographies, which are like abstract reliefs where everyone can see what they want to see... and on the other hand, the portraits.
The theme of the portrait is part of a pictorial tradition, but little by little, the motif will migrate and detach itself, like a contemporary Shroud!
With the Anonymous series, the artist transfigures each detail in order to bring out the model's personality. Then he continues the exploration of the representation of the portrait through the ages, with some great figures from the collective memory.
From Velázquez to Vinci, and from Rembrandt to El Greco, to the contemporary icon par excellence: the emoticon.
References and tributes go by. Like mirages, these portraits transport us with their very particular, almost ghostly presence.
Portraits of remembrance, it is no longer us who look at the Mona Lisa or the Menin, it is them who look at us.
Used as a dry paint, the threads, by mixing and overlapping, make these faces appear as if they were three-dimensional.
They seem more blurred, and yet they become more real, more alive!
Mathieu Ducournau is born in Morocco and lives and works in Paris. As an intuitive and outstanding artist, he explored the possibilities of painting by himself, before meeting the thread and the potential of the sewing machine. He has been exhibiting regularly since 1996, and he also collaborates with French Luxury Homes such as Taillardat and Hermès.