Press release
The reality of the line
Initially, there is the impulsive drawing of the sketch. Then a maze of lines, similar to construction sketches, complicates the composition. These are figures upside down, details of accumulations, scraps of sentences, or some kind of repentance which the artist seems to play with, by moving elements without erasing their first movement.
Horse, erotic image or portrait, the approach is the same. Drawing light , color and shapes in motion, Joel Person seems to express different time intermingle. His work, composed of ink, pencil, charcoal, or black stone, looks very colorful. Is it a pure effect of the decomposition of the light? No doubt, if we consider that black is the sum of all colors.
In the fascination of the artist for the horse, at the male and female border, the artist translate both the desire and the repulsion, the wonderful and the threat – some feelings which may be of childhood memories. The animal mass is frequently identified as a body, a body seen as a domineering and instinctual force. That mass is surrounded by multiple lines, a mass of graphics resonance coming from different registers: anatomical treatises, text snippets, pornographic scenes.
There is a short step from this world of animals, horses in particular, and that of sexuality. Be there images saturated with bodies or on the contrary prevailing of the emptiness, these drawings reflect an artistic enjoyment of drawing lines on a blank sheet.
Last but not least, Joel Person excels in portrait, framing his figures in a timeless and refined composition, where the elements are sculpted by light and emptiness.
A reality translated by a few lines.