Yann Le Berre aka L’outsider has long practiced urban art and it is now in Brittany that he has set up his studio, in former agricultural buildings transformed into a space for creation and artistic experimentation, offering the possibility of hanging the works, especially the large formats, to appreciate the scenography.
From urban art to the workshop
In his artistic research, Yann L’outsider plays with the dualities that constitute his work. His orientation towards working in the studio, about ten years ago, inevitably transformed the conditions of creation, placing the artist in a different temporal context, turning him towards more standardized media, yet Yann L’outsider never ceases to seek to recreate the state of stillness, urgency, imbalance, or discomfort that may have stimulated the creative momentum in urban environments. Inspiration without premeditation. In the studio, Yann L’outsider often imposes time or material constraints, imposes limits, obstacles, or low lighting conditions, in order to find the conditions that generate the adrenaline of a practice on the fringes of legality. This is how the artist feels alive, present in his creative act. Yann L’outsider intends to translate on canvas the sincerity and flamboyance that are the essence of spontaneity and creative freedom. A singular way of dealing with these two contexts, namely public space and the ritual of the studio, and of «de-sacralizing» the canvas, at the cost of the persistent sense of imposture that is characteristic of artists. Yann L’outsider employs an aesthetic that stands apart from dogma and that transcribes the gestural choreography of street art in a nonchalant and dazzling way.
While the workshop allows for the channeling of prolific creativity, it should not become a comfort zone for reproducing series of works that are endlessly expanded. The artist experiments, welcomes the unconventional, sometimes thinks he is wrong, and still seeks out new paths. He never succumbs to aesthetic inertia. Like a language that renews itself and enriches itself through a practice that encompasses multiple situations, Yann Le Berre’s work evolves, deeply imbued with his own vibration, from this constant quest that keeps the artist at a distance from the paralyzing certainties.
Typogram #5 and Typogram #6, 2020
Aerosol and acrylic on canvas
65 x 50 cm
American white cash drawer enclosure
1 800€
An instinctive gesture
Creating, where art begins, is a question that animates Yann L’outsider through several dualities that mark his aesthetic emancipation. The duality between urban art and studio art and this stimulating concern with legitimacy, but also between craftsmanship of excellence and Art. In contrast to his practice as an artist, his training as a skilled artisan with meticulous, codified, repetitive gestures aimed at achieving perfection in execution. In artistic creation, allowing instinct and improvisation to run free, allowing the work to emerge, unpredictable, experiencing this dizzying emancipatory freedom, and never becoming stifled by a certain level of expertise, even if it is exceptional. Once again, Yann L’outsider composes through this duality that creates a creative tension. It is the dynamic of movement that allows one to overcome an opposition that may only appear superficial. The kinetic aspect is what enables one to overcome a contradiction that may only appear apparent. His work is made of vibrations, graphic chiaroscuro, the emergence of lines and light.
A typographic and cosmic abstraction
Another duality nourishes Yann’s inspiration: the duality between the urban and the rural, the duality between abstraction and phenomenology. The artist, who says he is urban by accident and who now lives on the lands of Brittany, is imbued with a family culture woven from the destinies of humble lives spent working the land. This duality constitutes the singularity of L’outsider, which draws inspiration from the observation of nature, the long cycles, and the strength of the elements, particularly palpable in Brittany. Transcribing on the canvas the confrontation between the material and immaterial dimensions, the infinitely small and the infinitely large, interpreting in the language of pictorial abstraction the clash of wind, the breath of the mists, the unrest of the waves, and the rhythm of the rain. Perhaps this is a way to perpetuate the family narrative with his own language, to prolong the learning process, to make the memory of the gesture that is passed on imperceptibly from generation to generation his own. This gestural expression, never consciously realized or theorized, is deployed by the artist in his own way in the creative act. From this foundation and this history, Yann Le Berre draws a humility and sincerity that are the grammar of his artistic expression. Honoring his debt of life to those who came before does not prevent him from asserting his uniqueness, forging his own path, opening up to other places, and the artist composes with this richness to explore all the nuances that foil oppositions.
The wall, an essential support
The studio work has not deterred Yann L’outsider from working with urban spaces. Constantly on the lookout for abandoned places that he identifies thanks to a promising perspective, a particular light, or objects that enliven the space, he continues to exercise his free expression on the walls, freed from the constraints and ambitions of the object-work. He is also regularly invited to include his graphic universe in festivals, most recently in Reims for a project to rehabilitate an industrial wasteland, or in St Ouen in the former workshops and showrooms of Pierre Cardin before their next transformation into an industrial building.
A selection of works presented by Hatchikian Gallery
Hatchikian Gallery is pleased to present a selection of emblematic aerosol and acrylic on canvas works by Yann L’outsider, representative of his evolution towards typographic abstraction and cosmic abstraction.
The Typogram series, a formal game of letters
The series of five Typogram #1, #2, #3, #4, #5 24×30 cm and the two Typogram #6 and #7 50×65 cm, created in 2020, are inspired by a Chinese game, Tan Gram, a puzzle of shapes derived from a square that decompose and reassemble themselves infinitely. An abstract game that the artist has translated into the 26 letters of the alphabet to imagine a typographic abstraction with multiple possible interpretations, which should be contemplated without deciphering it, as a gift to be received as such.
A formal language apart from meaning
The work Abstraction Typographique #3, 146×97 cm from 2019, also forms part of this exploration that invites us to look at the work without trying to interpret it, to appreciate its plastic beauty without being guided or disturbed by its meaning. Accepting and supporting the absence of meaning, breaking away from explanation, letting oneself be carried by the movement of the work. Like an allegory of the artist with misunderstood language facing the demanding viewer, in search of grasping the final truth of the work.The work Haiku #6, 195×130 cm, came as a visual, elliptical, enigmatic and evanescent poem, like a subdued and nuanced version of the language of the tag.
Typographic Abstraction #13, 2019
Aerosol and acrylic on canvas
146 x 87 cm
American oak case with natural veneer
4 300€
Aerosol and acrylic on canvas
195 x 130 cm
American cash drawer enclosure in chestnut wood
7 300€
Cosmic abstraction
The work Spleen 146×97 cm, created in 2020, whose title is borrowed from Baudelaire’s poem, is a contemplative abstraction of the kinetics of rain and the patterns of its streaks. A stylized graphic inspired by Japanese prints that depict the multiple nuances of rain.The work L’Horizon des Événements #2, 195x130cm, created in 2020, is inspired by the observation of cosmic phenomena and the astral dynamics that confront darkness and light. A fascinating work that draws us into a mystery that may be that each of us experiences in his or her own story.
