Samuel Rousseau

Samuel Rousseau

Brussels, Belgium Saturday, April 19, 2008–Saturday, May 31, 2008

From 19 April until 31 May 2008, AEROPLASTICS Contemporary presents the recent works of Samuel ROUSSEAU (1970), a French multi-media artist living and working in Grenoble, capital of the French Alps.

Through his new multimedia installation "La Constellation des Baisers" (Constellation of Kisses – 2008), the artist pursues his exploration of human pleasure, it's digital expression and the poetic feeling it may generate: thousands of projected kisses fly around, thanks to beamers and mirrors, and invite the viewer to be part of it. The "Festin des Délices" ( Feast of Delights – 2006) or some of his Video Wallpapers are the origin of this installation.

With the "Montagnes d'incertitudes" (Mountains of Uncertainty – 2007) and installation "Sans Titre" (l'Arbre et son Ombre) (Untitled- the Tree and its shadow – 2008), the artist takes us back to the immutable cycle of nature, that relives through virtual image. Rousseau makes digital art seem warm , fertile, reassuring, generous.

His installation "Jardins Nomades" (Nomadic Gardens – 2007) and his series of photographs "Douceurs marocaines" (Moroccan Pleasures – 2006) evoke migration or travel with a poetry and aesthetic that barely hides the sombre truth behind it: drugs and forced economic displacement.

Finally, the magnificent video "Maternaprima" depicting something moving inside planet earth, brings us back to the essential: the individual and the universe, the genesis and the end. A glance from the micro to the macrocosm, like in his "Casei" (2007); Photographs of planets ? Or perhaps cellular organisms ? Or simply of cheeses?

The set of works shown in this exhibition indicates a search to master time and space so as to question, with humour and sympathy, the human perception of the often deleterious daily life. Even if Rousseau does not claim any "definite processes" and enjoys surprising himself, some key ideas support his non-stop creativity. As Ariane's clew, the necessity to survive and the recycling of scrap and abandoned material.

P-Y. D.