Cover Up

2009 — 2011
Slideshow projection
(58 photographs)
2’54’’
Dimensions variable
Ed. of 5 + 2 A.P

Cover Up is a photographic documentation of graffiti covered with paint by different authority.

“The photographic samples made by Matthieu Martin in the course of his wanderings through various metropolises, filled with graffiti and concealments alike, invite us to stop so as to perceive their formal richness and narrative treasures. For, beyond the visual attractions, a story emerges with already at least three episodes respectively situated in the present, the future and the past. We see the picture, we guess what is out of frame and we imagine the offered pattern, fixed like a butterfly in an everlasting suspended time, a sort of eternal present. We can also imagine a follow-up to the life of the wall fragment caught by the lens, chosen by the eye of the artist and which is on the point of becoming, right before our eyes, a piece of art. Painting references arise, turning the covering into a painting.
From time to time, the story of monochrome shows on the surface but it is the story of abstraction, gestural or not, which dominates. To better fit the background, the covering takes on a simple shape. Beautiful rectangles stand out on the walls or tend to merge into them. The bricklaying provides
the painter with guidelines to help him out. The use of the roller, a geometrization tool as well as a quick means to cover up a large surface, encourages the use of solid areas.”
Denys Riout

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matthieu, martin, cover up, exhibition, exposition, œuvres, work, Caen, artist, artiste