Venus Robotica II

the Venus Robotica exhibition in Paris is such a success that the Cabinet des Curieux gallery decided to add a few more pieces to it. I'll be part of the robotic fiesta with a brand new digital piece that comes with its pencil sketch. I'm not showing the image for now, all I can say is that it's named Taschenrechner, in reference to the Kraftwerk track I love so much.

You are all invited to the Robotea party ! 5 Dec. 2009 - 3PM / 8PM
see you there my replicant friends ;)

In parallel to the Venus Robotica exhibition I'm part of in Paris, I decided to record this vid. I begun with the idea of drawing a robot face, and then I let my mind go as he wanted to see what happens.
This is not a speed painting demo because I don't go to a finished piece. The art was done with the Alchemy software, allowing a lot of random marks and shapes, that influenced my decisions all along the process. I just painted over and over, mark upon mark, simply following what the random shapes suggested.

Melancholia exhibition

For once I'm not going to talk about my own selfish person. Well, actually about my better half instead !
If you pass by Paris this November, you need to wander by the L'Art de Rien Gallery in the quartier Montmartre, where you can see a beautiful exhibition of the romantic art of Agata Kawa. Alongside with artists Benjamin Lacombe, LiliDoll and Christophe Goussault. If you like the 19th century victorian era, the freaks, and children books, you won't be disappointed at all.
The gallery sells books, giclees, originals of many sizes and low prices most of the time.

Note that Agata Kawa will be signing her book Tigre le Dévoué at the Gallery the 5th of December.

Utopiales signing report

It was great meeting James Gurney & JB Monge at the Utopiales Festival in Nantes. James always has a pencil and moleskine in the hand, and he did Aleksi's portrait while we were talking about Merlin on the stage. He did mine while we were sketching each others books at the restaurant:

(from left to right: James Gurney, Aleksi Briclot, JS Rossbach, Gilles Francescano, JB Monge.)

Here are James's portraits:


and here are the sketches Aleksi and I were doing at the same moment:




Seeing James Gurney's Dinotopia exhibition was an eye opener. He's a master of light and shadows, taking some of his inspiration in the orientalists movement. I've learnt a few tricks (that I can't wait to try!) only by looking at his paintings. The Dinotopia book is a must-have !

I also warmly recommend JB Monge latest Celtic Faeries book. The man got the Art&Fact award this year. Rght after the Spectrum award, this is your year JB !!

This was the last date of my Merlin Brittany tour. Only a handful days after St Malo. MERLIN was sold out after two days in every spot we landed, and we had a tremendous response to it from the people who bought it. So thank you very much for letting us know that spending 3 years on this one was definitely worth it.