LA MENUISERIE, VANDŒVRES, Sept 4 - 21, 2025

In Search Of The Lost Self / Solo Exhibition, Thursday to Sunday : 3 to 7 pm, or by appointment

 
 
“My practice is grounded in a persistent negotiation with presence, absence, and the conditions of perception.”
— Stéphane Ducret
 
 

The possibility of an œuvre

  • On this basis, I develop possible avenues for the production of painted works.

    My work is about the inner quest to uncover feelings buried deep within ourselves, to reveal the person we really are, once the mask has come off.

    These interconnected yet different series are developed in parallel, all of which are oriented towards the search for “truth” and the possibility of creating meaning.

    My practice is driven by a desire to grasp reality in all its dimensions, in all its possible perceptions, inspired by the facets of the prism of various contemporary practices.

    Moreover, my work is not limited to this psychological and introspective dimension, but also analyzes the art of my time, posing as the writing of an apprenticeship.

  • In the Real Estate series (from 2017), I explore the relationship between reality and imagination, between knowledge and recognition, blurring limits of perception.

    Contemporary masterpieces are combined - sometimes obviously, sometimes implicitly - in imaginary settings where I create new narratives, disconnected from their original context, setting up a complex and highly referenced multi-faceted imaginary dialogue, in which I take up and develop the discourses of the artists I quote.

    New body of this series are now exhibited at La Menuiserie until Sept. 21th, 2025

  • Physicists distinguish between two facts: that time passes and that we cannot find in the future a moment that we have already passed through in the past and that things change irreversibly.

    I believe that time is not a rigid system, that it can be perceived in a fluid way that differs from person to person. Time is evoked in my views of the sea, clouds or mountains, from the window of an airplane. Air travel is a ritual of standing still while in movement, and connecting both to the now and to the infinite. This work leads us to question the past, the future and the present that lies in between.

  • The paintings of the My Own Private Museum series (from 2023) raise the question of the creator's identity and confront the void, the blank page, even the erasure of the self.

    Like Woody Allen's Zelig, I tackle a subject dear to psychology : the identification with reference characters in order to be loved, or to avoid rejection. In doing so, I question our need for recognition and our relation to an ubiquitous and growing omniscient digital environment.

 

ABOUT STÉPHANE DUCRET

 
 
“I consider myself a visual artist who works with paint, rather than a painter. At the same time, my work is intimately linked to contemporary art and painting.”
— Stephane Ducret
 
 

VIDEO