An artist trained in Saint-Étienne and Karlsruhe, a Germanophile and German speaker having lived for nearly ten years in Berlin, Damien Deroubaix today works in Meisenthal and Paris.
A painter and engraver, Damien Deroubaix also creates installations based on the themes that structure his work. These include his chosen artistic references (the Dance of Death, Dada, John Heartfield photomontages, Hieronymus Bosch, Picasso, etc.) and borrowings, particularly from the 'grindcore' aesthetic. Maintaining a culture of music and the cinema, Damien Deroubaix has also been exploring the field of the indigenous arts for several years with the recurring presence of fetishes in his large paintings, their aura gaining in esoteric power. The exhibition brings together the latest works of the artist, questioning painting itself and the position of the painter as heir to an age-old tradition, inhabited by mental images that sometimes meet in violent collisions. The Strasbourg exhibition also includes several large, older installations that are evidence of Deroubaix's freedom in moving between different media. The project aims to give an overall idea of the artist's work, its many different aspects being shown in a selection of recent and contemporary works including not only drawing and painting but also sculpture and engraving in wood and glass. Wood, as an iconographic motif, material and matrix for the work of engraving, is at the heart of the exhibition. Just as the artist moves from one medium to another, our guiding thread in this exhibition is the theme of transition from one world to another, of alchemy, a shift towards the supernatural and interpenetrating levels of reality generated by the recurring presence of tutelary figures.
Exhibition staged in partnership with Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Saint-Étienne, MAMC+ and galleries In Situ – Fabienne Leclerc, Paris and Nosbaum Reding, Luxembourg.
My Journey to the Stars, 2011 Watercolour, ink, acrylic and collage on paper. Loan to MAMCS by Claire Durand-Ruel © ADAGP Paris 2018. Photo: M. Bertola
Exhibition Curator: Julie Gandini, curator at MAMCS
