The exhibition "Connected": a show duo by L'Outsider and Vincent Abadie Hafez!
For its second exhibition of the year, and during the week of contemporary art, Hatchikian Gallery presents the exhibition Connexe, from October 17 to November 2, 2019, at 8 rue du Four (76006 – Paris).
Vincent Abadie Hafez aka Zepha
In 1989, under the pseudonym Zepha, he became involved in the graffiti movement. It was in the Parisian suburbs that he began to impose his name and that of his team; he has not stopped since… He appropriated public space and challenged certain visual conventions: an utopian graphic battle is waged against a system guided by a wild liberalism that eats up men and its terrible offspring, advertising. Vincent Abadie Hafez develops a graphic universe and a visual language through which the influence of the artisanal work of ancient civilizations, calligraphy, the immediacy of the movement of free figuration, the spontaneity of lyrical abstraction, and finally the random risk-taking of graffiti intersect. Arabic calligraphy strongly influences his work through his encounter with the Moroccan calligrapher Abdelatif Moustad and his discovery of the Sudanese artist Ahmed Abdel Aal and the Iraqi artist Hassan Massoudy. With the animated Koufique style and the Diwani style, he returns to the work of composition, letter balance, and the gestural style characteristic of graffiti. A work by Vincent Abadie Hafez and L’Outsider is in a way like that. Both of them, coming from the graffiti movement, marked the many cities they traversed with their monumental murals.
The Outsider
Yann Le Berre aka L’Outsider was born in 1984. Attached to his native Brittany, he lives and works there today, more precisely in Pont-Aven. Brittany, a land of entrepreneurs, simplicity and closeness to nature, with its magnificent landscapes, is a great source of inspiration for L’Outsider, as it has been for other great French artists who have contributed to his fame. In a very contemporary artistic practice, at the age of 17, he began to learn the codes and techniques of graffiti – he is fascinated by the freedom and energy of this practice that freely invades urban space. His interest in craftsmanship and creation led him to join the Boulle School in Paris in 2006, where he studied cabinetmaking. In parallel with this, and since the 2000s, he paints. The year 2015 marks a fascinating and radical shift in the artistic practice of L’Outsider; color gradually disappears from his compositions, as does the lettering, revealing a painting synthesized in abstraction and close to constructivism where the viewer can glimpse metaphysical questions. L’Outsider remains very attached to movement and the dynamic of the gesture, which is very present in graffiti.
The exhibition "Connected"
The universe of The Outsider is shaped by architecture, graphic design, and contemporary art. Fascinated by the freedom and energy of graffiti, The Outsider uses this artistic practice to broaden the diversity of cultures, notably through calligraphy. Since 2015, the artist has revealed a painting synthesized in abstraction, close to constructivism, leading to metaphysical questions. Like The Outsider, Vincent Abadie Hafez’s work is cosmopolitan. It is the result of crossbreeding, with the confluence of several cultures. The artisanal work of ancient civilizations, calligraphy, the immediacy of the movement of free figuration, the spontaneity of lyrical abstraction, and finally the random risk-taking of graffiti are all influences that feed Vincent Abadie Hafez’s work, where Arabic calligraphy is deeply rooted. Gesture, space, and man’s place in the immensity of the universe are all subjects of research that Vincent Abadie Hafez and L’Outsider address in their works, whether they be frescoes, works on canvas, or any other medium they would like to explore.
You can see the works from the exhibition Connexe L’Outsider and by Vincent Abadie Hafez by appointment at Art Loft!
Image gallery
