Interior wall painting. Commission for a private collector, France, August 2023.
DMA, Dessins Mécaniques Aléatoires
(Aleatory Mechanical Drawings)
For sale in the boutique here:
→ www.eltono.com/boutique/product-category/dma/eq
Archival ink on giclée print. Acid-free 300g Montval Canson paper.
The DMA_eq drawings are randomly generated following the RG_eq protocol. To create the drawings, I use two machines: a large-format plotter and a CNC. The protocol works as follows:
– A P5JS script generates a random gradient using 2, 3, or 4 colors.
– A second P5JS script creates a dynamic/irregular grid and fills each cell with a geometric shape. For each shape, the position, rotation, and hatch are chosen at random. I use 6 different hatch types: 0°, 90°, 45°, -45°, cross 0/90°, and cross 45/-45°.
– In Inkscape, the gradient is clipped into the background of each of the shapes.
– The clipped gradient is printed with the plotter.
– Depending on the size of the drawing, the hatch is sent either to the Axidraw or to the CNC and traced with a fine-liner pen on top of the gradient.
There are different sizes available: 16×24 cm, 33×50 cm y 40×65 cm (6.3×9.4 inches, 13×19.6 inches, and 15.7×25.6 inches).
Process pictures:
Thanks a lot to Romain Baudry for the video and to the Carton family for the plotter!
Varsi Art Lab, Rome, Italy
June 2023
During the two-week residency, with the support of 56Fili, I had the opportunity to explore the use of the screen printing technique, disrupting its conventional patterns and employing it as an extension of my artistic and aesthetic research.
The methodology applied to my generative art projects (Modo, Eltonolab, etc.) was consequently implemented in the productions of this residency. In a delicate balance between rules and chance, a new collection of screen-printed works emerged, breaking away from the typical series norms in favor of uniqueness.
I have created three new collections:
Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, France
October 2023
As part of its actions for inclusion and diversification of its audiences, the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille opened a free space for children aged 0 to 6 in the heart of its atrium in the fall of 2023, in partnership with the art initiation center Mille Formes from Clermont-Ferrand. The idea is to provide young children with their first multisensory artistic experience centered around shapes and colors through contemporary artworks.
Alongside Claude Como, I was invited to present my Espaces Manipulables (Manipulable Spaces) project, which was developed in 2022 in collaboration with the art initiation center Mille Formes. Additionally, I was asked to paint the exterior wall of the exhibition space in the museum’s atrium. I executed the generative painting Modo n.°55 in seven days.
Modo n.°55 generative mural painting:
Photos: Eltono
Generative mural painting
Paris La Défense, France
September 2022
Project commissioned by Art Entreprise for Paris La Défense and QPark.
Mille Formes Art Center
23 Rue Fontgieve, Clermont-Ferrand, France
April 2022
Mille Formes is an art initiation center for very young public (0 to 6 years old). It was conceived by the city of Clermont-Ferrand in partnership with the Centre Pompidou.
“Espaces Manipulables” (manipulable spaces) is a set of three interactive and immersive installations which goal is to invite the visitors to take part in the evolution of the artworks around them. A creative immersion that goes in contradiction to the sacralisation of the artwork and that, on the contrary, invites the public to touch, move and experiment with the objects forming the art. Thus making the visitor being art of the artwork and able to observe the results and discover the existing interactions between shapes, colors and space.
SET Espai d’Art (at Galería Nueva)
Madrid, Spain
October 2021
For the solo show Desperfectos, I presented three projects: Plotter de paseo (walking plotter), Transportistas (shippers) y Chaparrones (rain showers).
Following my research around the idea of making art while walking, I made a walking plotter that uses gravity and my body’s movements to activate some mechanisms and create drawings from my paths.
I built five boxes to ship five artworks from my studio in France to the gallery in Madrid. A box is meant to protect the art, but I painted the art on the outside of it. Instead of protecting, the box helps the deterioration of the art. I imagined this project as a collaboration between the shipping companies and me. I built, painted and handled the boxes with maximum care until the very moment I handed them over to the shipper. At that point I lost control of their condition. I was only able to discover the result when I arrived at the gallery in Madrid.
– T1 and T2 were sent with La Poste (Colissimo),
– T3 was sent with TNT,
– T4 was sent with UPS,
– T5 was sent with DHL.
Artworks created for the solo show Sérendipité at the Hangar 107 Art Center in Rouen in July 2021.
Following my researches around the idea of artwork alteration with uncontrolled external factors, I decided to take advantage of the Normandy weather to walk around the art center each time it was raining, protecting myself under an artwork. The colored parallel lines sequence traced with felt pens are defaced by the water drips which make the ink bleed. because the exposition time is the same for each outing, the characteristics of each rain shower can be clearly seen in the result. Big spaced drops, light rain or strong rain shower all leave a different imprint on the ink.
More information: https://galerianueva.com/galerias/setespaidart/
Hangar 107 Art Center
Rouen, France
July 2021
For the Sérendipité (serendipity) solo show, I presented eight bodies of work: two generative mural paintings, four street experimentations, one interactive mural installation and a generative sculptures project.
Following my researches around the idea of artwork alteration with uncontrolled external factors, I decided to take advantage of the Normandy weather to walk around the art center each time it was raining, protecting myself under an artwork. The colored parallel lines sequence traced with felt pens are defaced by the water drips which make the ink bleed. because the exposition time is the same for each outing, the characteristics of each rain shower can be clearly seen in the result. Big spaced drops, light rain or strong rain shower all leave a different imprint on the ink.
The SM7 sculptures are a reiteration of the Modo n.°7 protocol using volume. Eight different shapes are generated and laid out so the sculpture is stable. Once the balance is found, the molded pieces are assembled and the sculpture is fixed.
Following a generative protocol, 55 abstract compositions were painted on 50 x 50 cm wood panels. The hanging system allows to easily move the pieces around. This way, all along the duration of the show, the public can switch the panel around to make the composition evolves.
Puting the technological breakthrough of NFT in generative art to good use, I uploaded a code online so 16 collectors could generate 16 digital abstract compositions. Each one of them was painted in a cell following the generation order. The final result was discovered at the end of the painting because no simulation of the complete composition was made.
https://www.eltono.com/lab/projects/modo46/
An abstract composition is painted on a wood board and a rope is attached to it. I walk the board, painted face towards the floor, on a looping route that has been defined beforehand. The result is discovered at the end of the loop. In Rouen, I chose to walk eight boards on paths going through the docks and bridges around the Seine river.
After discovering a perfect 7×7 grid on the central freestanding wall, we painted the generative wall painting Modo n.°45 following the Modo n.°7 protocol.
When I arrived at the art center, I went outside to look for rocks. Each rock was painted with three different color coats. The rocks were then brought to the right bank of Rouen and I kicked them to make them roll following predefined paths. Some of them were dropped in the Mont-Saint-Aignan slopes and one, the biggest, rolled on the left bank around the art center.
Random paths (x5) were executed in Niort in 2017 for the show La Ville et le Mouvement curated by Winterlong Gallery.
For a predefined time, I wander in the city with a dice in my pocket. At each street intersection, I roll the dice to decide where to go next. The GPS data of the path is recorded and a sculpture is made out of the result. The sculptures are shown like abstract artworks resulting of my movement in the city.
Thanks to all the Hangar 107 crew, Jean Guillaume, Nicolas, Marc, Kim, Théo, Caro, Marilou and Gabin.
Pictures: Juan Cruz, Jean Guillaume Panis and Eltono.
