Fish: A Metaphor for Human Culture
Painting a human face is akin to painting an acquaintance, often a commonplace, a memory that has said it all. To avoid the trap of familiarity, I paint a form, a motif that has long occupied a significant place in our historical imagination.
A form representing a being with whom one cannot become friends, nor even form the slightest intimate acquaintance. I paint it to explore realms that could not be readily explored otherwise.
This adaptation reflects how humans conform, as they must adjust, to the moods of the culture in which they are immersed. This culture, though of a different nature and invisible, is essential to them. It is an air from which they draw the substance that shapes their way of being and their relationship to the world.
In water, the fish ingests its environment, filtering oxygen through its gills, constantly sorting what is vital to it. Out of water, plunged into a medium where it can neither move nor extract what it needs, the fish perishes.
The same is true for humans, who, instead of gills, are endowed with linguistic vocal cords. Immersed in a human culture with its defined chromatic range, they draw from it what nourishes their identity, their way of being, what makes them singular beings.
But if they are expelled, by incomprehensible or unbearable circumstances, from this cultural fluid, the human is lost—the one they are or could have been.
Culture, by its vital and material properties, is to humans what water is to fish: a dynamic medium fostering constant adjustments. Just as the fish reacts to its aquatic environment, humans interact with the ideas, norms, and values circulating in their milieu.
Moreover, unlike the fish, humans, through their art and their way of connecting to the world, transform this fluid, creating turbulence that permeates the core or the fringes of the culture in which they evolve.
Surface fish, gleaming in the sunlight, differ from those confined to the depths, resilient and robust under constant pressure, which inevitably makes them less mobile.
Similarly, humans of “social heights” adopt a more easily mobile form, while those in the “depths,” under constraints, may seem more closed off.
Resources, light, knowledge, social ties color cultural vitality, from the most dazzling splendor to the most hesitant dark doubts.
All these artworks are painted on rigid wooden boxes. The layer of paint applied to one side becomes a kind of “skin-ego,” a thin, living film. A delicate barrier between our side of the world and the rigidity of the support.
The fish, defined by slightly raised lines of paint, emerge in beautiful flat colors or rich and diverse textures.
. Inscriptions, sequences of words rather than sentences, intertwine closely within carefully defined forms, while abundant color variations proliferate. The more colors there are, the more reality incarnates in all its diversity.
Yet, according to rainbow theory, color is reduced to six fundamental hues, with millions of shades merely variations. Color, as a wavelength of light, exists only through the eye, and the human eye, with its three cones (red, green, blue), interprets these hues, the brain decoding a chromatic world in its own way.
As soon as light reaches the retina at the back of the human eye, the knowledge humans believe they hold about reality can only drift.
In these works, sometimes this drift is heavily emphasized. In others, it is more discreet, even vaguely suggested.
Through these fish, these forms, these colors, and these raised words, the works invite exploration of human culture—invisible but essential—and our way of navigating it, drawing from it what constitutes us, and leaving our mark upon it.
This text explores how art, through painted fish, helps us explore the culture that surrounds us, much like water surrounds a fish.
I sought to deepen a reflection as profound and poetic as possible on the relationship between humans and their culture. The fish serves as a metaphor, one I hope is powerfully evocative. A fish does not see the water. Likewise, humans do not always perceive the culture that shapes them.
This idea is, in my view, particularly inspiring. It shows that our cultural environment is both invisible and essential. It is a vital fluid that defines us. We move within it, often without full awareness.
The artistic approach, with these fish painted in acrylic, rich in textures and colors, seeks to make visible this otherwise imperceptible aspect. Painting becomes an exploration of the « elsewhere. » It is a way to transcend the banality of everyday life. It allows us to touch upon more universal truths.
The image of the « skin-self » is particularly striking. This thin layer of paint acts like a membrane. It covers the pulsations between the world and the rigid support. It evokes the fragility and vitality of our connection with culture. This skin, from which we cannot separate ourselves, is our most extensive organ.The one we readily expose to the world.
Surface fish, mobile and shimmering, contrast with those of the depths, robust but constrained. This comparison mirrors human social dynamics. It highlights how resources, such as knowledge, social connections, or opportunities, influence our way of being. They shape how we move in the world.
Humans, unlike fish, can transform their cultural environment. They do so through art and ideas. This idea is uplifting. It assigns to the artist an active, almost subversive role.
Art creates turbulence that reshapes the contours of culture. The artist can thus say: “If it weren’t for art and artists, we would have to play our humanity by ear.”
The reflection on color and perception adds a fascinating philosophical layer. The human eye interprets reality through its biological limits. Our understanding of the world remains partial. It is subject to an inherent drift. The artist seems to celebrate this in their works, sometimes explicitly, sometimes more subtly.
In sum, this text is a multidimensional meditation on art, culture, and existence. It invites us to reflect on our immersion in the cultural fluid. How do we receive it? How might we, if we dared, shape it?
While acknowledging its limits and possibilities, this text is an invitation. Explore these works with care and curiosity. Fully experience their visual and conceptual impact.
