Octavia Art Gallery is pleased to present Thierry Job: Sculptures (Life Has a Bigger Imagination Than Us). Job was born in Marseille, France and currently lives in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. He studied art at the School of Beaux Arts in Paris. His works as been exhibited at the Madrid Museum of Modern Art, Madrid; Barcelona Foundation Museum Caixa, Barcelona; Solleriic Palace, Majorca; Museum Chateau, Fort Sedan; Contemporary Art Center, Troyes; Arteepress, Madrid; Packard Plant Factory, Detroit, among others.
As Pierre Sterckx once explained to me, undoubtedly one of the most discerning connoisseurs of so-called contemporary art, "every eye is haunted." Thus, the figures from ancient mythologies (like Venus) and those contemporary ones from Comics and cinema (let's mention Sicario, Lone Ranger, Milou, Jane asleep…) haunt the eye of Thierry Job. This haunting is as joyful as it is subversive, ironic and inventive, leading to reversals, subversions, and iconoclastic metamorphoses, each more surprising than the last. To the point of giving rise to new creatures - Breath, Phytosanitary: Jack the Gardener, Eliza, Lider Maximo… - all born from the fertile imagination of Job and emerging as archetypes of a strange and new beauty.
Let's return to Lone Ranger and add Thunderbirds. Job, who has perfectly captured the intrinsic energy of these Super Heroes, seizes them, and while recreating them, propels them into spatial directions that, while delightfully ironic, are nonetheless necessary. Now, in movies and series, the figures of this contemporary mythology continue to multiply in confusion, intersect, and hybridize in "remakes," "prequels," "cross-overs," "reboots"...
If Job's gaze is haunted, it is also incredibly sharp. We know how capturing the spirit of a spirited horse is what distinguishes authentic artists from the merely aspiring. Whether it's the mount of Lone Ranger or that of Ghostwriter, Job tames the broncos with brilliance! The eminently artistic dimension of his approach is part of this attention to natural mobility (Surfing Along Alone) as well as that driven by the most advanced dynamic technology (Thunderbirds).
This mastery of moving volumes places all these creatures far beyond what might mistakenly and limitatively be perceived as the result of a caricatural and parodic vision. The richness and formal complexity of these characters far exceed the playful classification of Comics. The questions raised here are of a cosmic, political, or artistic nature - Are We Alone in The Universe? - Lider Maximo - Picasso and Braque were Friends – Ghostwriter…
The constantly disconcerting form-function relationship of these polychromatic creatures elevates them to a symbolic level that challenges us. The artist plays expertly, yet effortlessly, without showiness, with the symbolic use of their transcendence. Let's, for example, place Breath and Phytosanitary Jack the Gardener (who could have been called Phytosanitor...) side by side; this comparison acts like two electrical poles brought into contact. And if, better than a long demonstration, these exposed the deadly discord of environmental theses that short-circuit today, risking to lead the living to the final epileptic crisis?
With Champion, we can question the narcissistic, spectacular, and commercial drifts of sporting practices. Have the interpretive deliriums of psychoanalysis led Doctor Freud's patient to such a state of dreamy and rosy lethargy, more akin to slug-like behavior than sensual abandonment...?
Look closely at Lider Maximo, without a beard or cap à la Fidel. In this rough mass, neither red nor brown, a green that is anything but ecological, tyranny reincarnates, constantly renewed. It's the return of the monstrous Father Ubu, decidedly more than ever our contemporary.
The dynamic work of play, interaction, and assembly of heterogeneous materials, each element rigorously chosen, ultimately resolves all the tensions between artistic intention and its realization. These materials, if spoken aloud, read like elements of a synesthetic and Baudelairian poem, where "perfumes, colors, and sounds respond to each other": Tornillo wood, plastic toys, belt buckles, silver leaf, gold leaf, nylon, ex-votos, steel, wood, wicker, tin, tinplate, resin, rubber, cement, enamel, bamboo roots, silicon sand, magnet, pink resin, cow leather, bike mudguard, translucent blue, painted bronze, glitter, ebony…
A fundamental humanism underlies these complex compositions, rich in paradoxes and ambiguities, as disturbing as they are reassuring, as amusing as they are intriguing. Vast is the array of sensations and emotions unleashed by Thierry Job, and one can't help but dream of a next step for these creations, each of remarkable plastic specificity: their monumental reproduction, and their placement in public spaces!
The above text is written by Albert Algoud, a French writer and humorist, as well as a screenwriter for movies, television, and radio, where he has produced numerous cultural shows and comedy programs. He has also published a large number of books on the work of Hergé, particularly the "Adventures of Tintin."
www.thierryjob.net