Lucile Gauvain: "My work is inspired by the artificial, kitsch and clichés"

Can you tell us more about your background, and how art imposed itself on you?

As a child, I used to say with a bit of aplomb that I wanted to make art. When people asked me what, I answered “an artistic thing”. I had an urgent need to make things, it always ended up in three rolls of cardboard stuck together, it was like nothing and it frustrated me. I started studying architecture in art school, I loved Zaha Hadid. In the end, I did not particularly shine on the projects that were imposed on us in progress, and I felt quite far from the constraints that were imposed on the exercises. Once, after rendering, my teacher took me aside and told me “You are not made to create buildings that last over time”. It wasn't the most touchy comment I've been given, but it was on point!

He pushed me to try a competition for a school in film sets. I did four years of studies and it was a revelation, I was finally able to touch all eras and all universes through drawing and graphics. I embarked on a first film after school. I loved bringing other people's ideas to life until my own started to take shape. It was precious, precisely because it had been my anxiety since the rolls of cardboard. I started to draw next to the scenes that I would have liked to see in film, in books. Since then, I divide my time between the two. One complements the other, and right now I don't feel like prioritizing.

What were your major inspirations?

I didn't have a crazy painting culture, but I remember being marked by the paintings of Hopper and Hockney. Later, through the innocence and violence of Yoshitomo Nara's paintings. By films especially, The Truman show for example. The passage where the creator says, “Each of us accepts the reality of the world we face, it's as simple as that” It was a shock to me. Old films like Psycho also inspired me, the pasteboard decorations which make us say that "it's false but it's beautiful". The abandoned places, the wreckage of the Titanic which comes back to life in the opening sequence. The mini golf of my childhood with its courses filled with dinosaur statues. Optical illusions in fairground attractions. The large beach poster hanging on the wall of the neighborhood fish market; the small aquarium filled with crabs stuck on top of each other.

What are the places or universes that stimulate your creativity and imagination?

The artificial, the kitsch, the cliché, the infinite. Swimming pools, golf courses, ice rinks, hotels and restaurants of all kinds, museums, amusement parks, wherever there are traces of human impact in natural, uninhabited or desert spaces. Theater sets, too. The kind of unusual place that always rings a little false, out of time. I am always fascinated by this desire to create spaces or things that imitate or reject the natural. I like the idea of marking territory, creating a parallel reality and standing out. But it can also come from stories, legends, fiction in general. Basically, anything that triggers the question: “what is authentic?”. Little extra: people who have a little sense of drama. I'm never against a little spice.

Your works feature young and diverse protagonists, representative of today's society. Do you think that inclusivity is now a question that is really taken into account in the still very elitist world of contemporary art?

I don't have enough experience in this specific environment yet, but it is obvious that in general we are still only at the beginning of the subject. The art world, whose primary function is to reflect an era and raise awareness, must redouble its efforts and force visibility so that this notion is more natural than mechanical. . There is too much suffering, fighting and achievements that are called into question on a daily basis for us to allow ourselves today to believe that this consideration is satisfactory.

Your works are often vectors of messages about the world around us, whether it's consumer society ("Orders and disorders"), or the dictatorship of appearance. Where does this quasi-sociological approach come from?

I am hypersensitive, and moments of blockage or powerlessness tend to impact me strongly. As my first instinct is never to act, I observe and listen first. I like to turn situations upside down, emotions are never simple, they are much more complex than the words that describe them. Why do certain elements confront each other and how can they coexist? I try to transfer this complexity into drawings, it's not always very conscious but anyway, I sincerely believe that all our actions carry messages. It's a way of saying “It's not very clear but it concerns me. Does it speak to anyone, and if so, why? In my opinion, there is no evolution without common questioning.

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Created in 2012 and reflecting the contemporary art scene in all its diversity, the HOFA Gallery is an essential place that accompanies and promotes emerging and established artists from all over the world in its spaces in London, Los Angeles and Mykonos.