Gongmo Zhou

Artist‘s statement：

My research in painting questions the question of interface. It finds its source in the omnipresence of screens and the phenomena of reflection. I have always communicated with my family through screens. The distance, the physical absence allow me to re-interrogate the reality of the image in the digital era and to reflect on the distance that separates us from the images. I am therefore particularly concerned with the connection between two spaces. “Reflection” has become my way of observing the world. My paintings show an absence of the body, presenting states of visibility and imperceptibility.

The photographs, which serve as a support for my painting work, are partly taken from my daily life: reflections from the door, the window, the screen… And partly from the cell phone application Leboncoin: I select visuals and take screenshots, then reframe and rephrase them. I try to establish links between these square structure elements, which can all be interfaces connecting two different spaces. The painting is like a screen. The persons reflected in some of my paintings do not appear in the frame of the image, they are out of focus, blurred, sometimes isolated, sometimes grouped. I like to paint both figurative and non-figurative images within the same painting. The figurative parts feel familiar, tangible… While the blurred parts give me a sense of abstraction, strangeness and distance, which allows me to focus more on the colors and the brushstrokes themselves. I like to experiment to create texture, I am fascinated by shades of color and gradations of gray to enrich the painting.

I use the malleability of oil paint to explore the range of boundaries and spatial relationships between blur and sharpness, virtual and real, interior and exterior in images.