Maxime Simon
In 2014, Maxime Simon begins to produce large watercolor drawings. Inspired by the old Italian masters and classical greek sculpture, his work explores the themes of self perception, beauty and delirium.
These figures, and the complex compositions of which they are part of, represent scenes of close to no importance, a dinner between friends, a family gathering, a bar fight, but the artist decides to represent them magnified beyond reason, turn them into mythical scenes or biblical episodes, as they are percieved by the characters.
The ego and it’s self distortion tendencies are here at the center of the representation.
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Waiting For The Fun, 2015
Watercolor on Paper
100 x 150 cm
Through these characters fantasizing their reality, the artist evokes the madness within us, the megalomania, the latent schizophrenia in it’s most benign forms and asks us to consider the tangibility of our own reality.
Taking into consideration the viewpoint of the characters, and thus humanizing them would become a centerpoint in Simon’s work and introduces the most prominent figure of his production: the Homunculus. This idea of a man made man, of a soul given object, sensual and sensible, describes what has become the definition of an art piece.
Youth, 2015
Watercolor on Paper
100 x 150 cm
Ghosts of Memory, 2017
Watercolor on Paper
85x 130 cm
Le Passage, 2017
Watercolor on Paper
90 x 150 cm
In a Garden of Statues, 2019
Watercolor on Paper
65 x 100 cm