Baptiste Laurent - "Des mouches de l'espace public", XXL, posca on paper, 2014

"Public Space Flies", XXL, 142x110cm, Posca acrylic on paper, 2014
Signed on back. Sold unframed, shipped rolled.
@baptiste___laurent

IBERIAN NATION Exhibition /
First obsession: filling the surface mechanically and coldly, using a basic working method. With the most elementary graphic element—a marker stroke from left to right, top to bottom—until the space to be painted is covered with lines.
The goal: to fill everything in, and the criterion is: as little thought as possible to achieve a filled surface.
A process carried out with the utmost diligence using an intuitive freehand stroke, but no matter how careful I am… it leaves room for error… Repeating until the canvas is filled, and accepting mistakes… allows me to enter a state of mind that is empty yet focused, or a state of genuine head-scratching…
Second purpose: after a long, hard winter, between physical hibernation and intellectual boredom… what was better for me than reading the speeches of Zarathustra as he came down from his mountain?… writing them down!
(I’ve always been too lazy to read Don Quixote, for example… but now that I’ve discovered this method… I even feel like writing it myself!)
The succession of letters and words without spaces turns out to be the most basic graphic forms that aligned with my initial obsession.
It’s a strange way to read Nietzsche—by writing… The speeches of Zarathustra deserve to be read over and over again like a parable told by the prophet. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is also a parody of religious texts. The animal metaphors and Zarathustra’s solemn discourse are the
For me, it turned out to be a very interesting exercise, both in terms of its form and its content. In a moment of idleness… during a long winter… in a Spain in crisis, it had struck me as funny to call the exhibition: Iberian Nation.

Bio artist/
Baptiste Laurent (1980, Nantes) is a visual artist who lives and works
in Madrid and Paris.
He has exhibited at various artistic and cultural institutions,
including the Institut français de Madrid, Le Palais de Tokyo, Galeria
La Caja, Esquina Nua, Espacio Seara, Gazzambo Gallery, Alliance
française, Museo Nacional de Antropología, Galeria FL.
His traditional medium is painting, but he also works in sculpture
and develops projects with a strong literary, social and
anthropological component.
In his latest publications and exhibitions, "Conversaciones y
puñetazos", "Mauvaises Tournures", "Bajo el Mismo Mar" and "Exit",
has repeatedly experimented with collaborative creative work
with other visual artists and literary authors.
As an anti-academic and eclectic artist, he likes to syncretise
pictorial styles, oscillating between neo-figurative narrative, graphic
painting and expressionist abstraction.
Founder of the 'Latolier' shared studio in Madrid's Usera district, he
leads a dynamic community of Spanish and international visual
artists.