Arnaud Pagès, the Free Figuration Kid

Arnaud Pagès is a french illustrator based in Paris. Class 1971, his work is pretty inlfuenced by pop art and street-art and the massive use of fluorescent colors reminds us of the 80s. However, his début as a painter dates back to 90s.

Mao - traditional drawing colored with photoshop, 2011.

Hi Arnaud, you defined your work as a ‘cultural crossover’. What do you mean with this?

As a painter, i’ve been influenced by a lot of things. Music, movies, fashion, graffiti, classic paintings, modern paintings, tribal paintings, street-art, books, magazines, comics, cartoons, advertisings etc… And i guess that all these influences have shaped the way i’m making art. I have respect and admiraton for painters who died 400 years ago as much as for graffiti artists. So when i say « cultural crossover » i mean that my art is made of all these elements. It’s not only street art or pop art. It’s much more than this.

Artists (of all the times) you admire.

Well, there's a lot but i think that if i really had to make a choice, i would say Michelangelo, Matisse, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Warhol, Keith Haring !

Bad Gaga - traditional drawing colored with photoshop, 2011.

Who are the main characters of your work?

I don’t have specific characters… I prefer to make exhibitions that are telling stories… Like what i did with the « Fifteen Most Corrupted  project » . It was an exhibition about the fifteen guys the most corrupted of the 20th century, as Nixon or Mobutu. It’s much more the idea or the concept that i use to create my artworks.

How much importance do you give to shape, space and colors in your artworks? 

Color is definitivly very very important ! I use color as a « signature ». The way you put colors togethers can create something very strong. That’s what i do. Space is not so important for me… In fact i don’t do a specific work about space…  I always use the same, or similar,  spaces on my canvas. And shape is my drawing style. Shape and colors togethers, it’s 90% of my art.

Kennedy Was King - traditional drawing colored with photoshop, 2010.

What’s the Figuration Libre and why do you define yourself a ‘free figuration kid’ ?

Free figuration, also called "Figuration Libre" has been very important for me and for a lot painters from the 90's generation. It's a real mix beetween classical influences, pop art, graffiti, rock'n'roll, comics... It was created by guys like Haring, Basquiat or Ben. It's a link between pop art and graffiti art, and it's really the next episode of the pop art adventure. In France, we have Combas and Di Rosa. They are great painters. So, as i say i'm a free figuration kid. Cause i've been deeply influenced by all these great painters.

Marylin Was F***** - traditional drawing colored with photoshop, 2010.

Something you do when you’re procrastinating?

I do my best for never procrastinating. Cause as i’m always very busy on several projects at the same time, so when i’m late on one project, it makes me late on all the others ! Sometimes i’m too tired to make good work, so i make a break, sleep a few, drink cofee and eat something. And when i feel it’s ok i go back working hard.

Which International art galleries have you exhibited your work at? 

I’ve been showing my work in Hong Kong at G999 gallery and Kapok gallery. And also in London at the OFR gallery. But i’ve been mostly exhibiting my work in France. Of course, i would love making more exhibitions outside of my country.

Milosevic Is Corrupted - traditional drawing colored with photoshop, 2009.

What’s your most dreamed art gallery ever?

Léo Castelli ! Definitively, the most influent curator of the 20th century !

One reason you make art. 

Because it's my life. It's not a job, not a passion, not a way to make my name famous, it's just my life. It's just me. I'm a natural born painter !

And it’s really like a drug. I can’t live without painting or draiwing.

What are you working on right now?

Actualy i'm working on my next collaboration with the french brand Kulte. The "Eighties Kid Academy" will be released in june. Stay tuned. More projects are arriving from now until the end of the year… And i've launched "Art to Sell" : it’s my « limited editions » project. Feel free to check the website. You can buy a limited edition eaven if you’re not in France. All are numereoted and signed and very exclusive. There’s just a few number of copy for each drawing.  
Feel free to have a look: http://arnaudpagesarttosell.ultra-book.com/

Suharto Is Corrupted - traditional drawing colored with photoshop, 2009.

Website: 
http://pages.arnaud.free.fr/
Ultra-book.com:
http://arnaudpages.ultra-book.com/

Welcome to Voom Hotel

About one year ago i included in my degree thesis “On The Aesthetic Experience In Virtual Worlds" the work of an italian digital artist and creative director, Luca Lisci.

About one year after, i’m here to introduce to you all Luca - also known as Voom - and talk with him about his new art project, Voom Hotel.

Promoetheus - Machinima by Luca Lisci. Cosmic Gods and ultra-contemporary pop surrealism machinima. Winner of Machinima Award 2009 by Machinima Guild in Second Life. Selected by FILE 2010 Electronic Language International Festival Sao Paolo Brazil.

My SL avatar PetraWolf in front of Voom Hotel (March 9th, 2011).

Luca, let’s talk about your cultural background. You’re involved in performing media, videomaking machinimas and procedural art. How did you approach to the metaverse world and especially to this kind of art?

I’ve spent my younghood keeping my traditional art separated from my geek intentions. It  was a bad effort playin’ the hopping game. I could not find anything good enough from the union of two things. I continued to study interface programming at high-school during the day and drawing fiction in the night: my family got a long tradition in paintings, i loved pop art and surrealism. 

In the years i felt in love with movies. Peter Greenaway’s ‘’Prospero’s Book’’ based over Shakespeare’. The Fellini’s ‘’Casanova’’, and cult like ‘’Barbarella’’ started something, but ‘’Tron’’ was the true blast to me. After high-school i went to university, i studied Architecture and Industrial design: computers grew as i grew. As soon as i got into art direction for advertising and entertainment industry I  begun using computer to make images, i liked the idea of ‘performing portraits’, instead of statics, using code to give images a life of their own: as i discovered just later,  the two things i could not unite came as one at last. Was in 2006 when i crossed 3D online world like Second Life, it was the begininnig of the story. I came then into virtual art, that means full convergence  of all my tools and visions together.

Who’s Mr.Voom? Voom’s the bard. It’s the first other self i met. To say it’s the living point of contact i got with me. He’s the totem i focus to  when i go exploring other version of reality. He’s my personal Orpheus.

Voom.

"Voom Hotel is a transmedia art project made of a certain number of linked virtual locations. There are Rooms, Halls, Hallways, Gardens, Facilities distribuited over different media. Every location got its own guest, customers of the Voom Hotel”. What’s the objective of this project?

Let me go where my inner selves are. I need to build a representation, i need to get them out to get me free. The Voom Hotel is not built by bricks nor by pixel or bytes, but can be represented by bricks , pixels, bytes as digital image, poetry, video, painting, music.  I can use whatever i got in my hands to give it a way to be perceived. I can use computer, metaverses, even performances, theatre, videos, poetry. 

Check out the Voom Hotel SLURL

At how many levels of immersion can you enjoy Voom Hotel?

People can enjoy the Voom Hotel the way they like the most.  

Are you passive? Just grab a seat to follow one of the Voom Hotel’s residents: you can see videos about the stories of Mr. Meta Lexico and Ms. Yizhou Flow, you can follow Twitter to listen ‘the hallways’ rumors. You can even follow the drama of Wing Fallen’s rock music, or share the Facebook company page. 

Are you interested in taking part? Just ask: Mr. Voom may rent you a room at the hotel.

So you have a section on your site dedicated to Guests and Rooms, Leisure Areas and Service Areas: tell us about the structure of Voom Hotel. How did you plan it? Is it an evolving architecture or not?

Voom hotel is living architecture since the building is made out of pure imagination. As a living creature it eats, digests and shits, it ages. 

Every space of it represents a corner of the living mindscape i am. Rooms are extentions of guests: guests are point of convergence of memories, imaginations, sensations. Leisure areas like Zhong’s Tunnel of Love and Icon String’s Hi-Score Park are statements defining the ‘’innatural’’ laws my imaginations is set up with. Service Areas like Lush’s Laundry Hall are zones of my obsessions.

Virtual Art Performance. Varios Jugadores shaping a single digital scultura di carne virtuale dans le jardin d'hiver.

Is there any reason to experience Voom Hotel?
You don’t have to have any reason to experience Voom Hotel.

How much interest there’s in real world around transmedia art and how it is expressed?

Trans-media storytelling is the way we live today, it’s our perception of reality. Just one plain example: the riots in maghreb are here with you, still you are very far from there. You are into those events by simultaneous feeding among different media streams. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Blogs.

You have the whole scenario by putting togheter different kind of media, every one giving you a very different way to experience that fact.

Tell us about one of the latest initatives by Voom Hotel.

Voom Hotel Laundry hall performed rencently in the Second Life:  about 80 people shared their avatars in a huge washing machine. At the end of the washing process they felt really clean, Mr. Luqh Lusch, the chief officer of the laundry services is an anthropomorphic pink rabbit. He’s a bit a maniac but very efficient. The performance has been purchased by the MiC, the museum’s network of the city of Rome.

Mr. Luqh Lusch.

Laundry Hall. A virtual art performance by Mr. Voom.

Are your artworks for sale?

Yes they are. Voom Hotel is a big resort and very expensive to maintain. So digital frames of guests and events are for sale, but we are almost ready to launch a new line of art products, i’ll tell you. Please also let me mention our primary venue, the room rental.

What are you working on right now? Is there any preview for us about Voom Hotel’s project? 

We are now finally closing the recording session of Wing Fallen’s album: Loud in Silence. 

As you may know Wing was on  trial, accused of multiple murder. He has has been confined in a special section of Voom Hotel, under a rehab program leaded by Mr. Voom. Wing is a rocker, and the project means to renew his sociability through the recovery of his identity as an artist. The process is quite challenging but i think we finally reach our final goal by this spring.

Links:

Luca Lisci on YouTube

FluidSIDE The Virtual Art diaries

voomhotel.com

You can buy original Voom Hotel artworks via SMARTAREA art gallery.