Concrete, steel and meat.

Nicolas Daubanes’ artistic practice unfolds through drawing, sculpture, video and installation. His polymorphous research questions the actors of an intimate or global history, and the memorial dimension is essential. The artist’s personal attention to the human condition anchors her plastic work in a striking political and social quality. The symbolic force of her work points to a place, an event, men and women with exceptional destinies; situations that are often omitted, forgotten or even hidden.

For the past 10 years, Nicolas Daubanes has been developing a body of work based on several residencies in prisons. Recently, he has accompanied a high school in its duty to remember, or questioned the fantasized events of a heritage site. At La Maréchalerie, the artist proposes a final device in which “resourced” materials are reinvested to create a new architecture of ruin. A “bite” is added to the metal of doors previously tattooed with the temporal strata of incarceration. In situ spraying of the wood of these same structural elements adds an extra layer of dust to the context. The artist’s gestures summon the body, echoing acts of revolt and mutiny. Together, they create a fragile landscape ready to disappear, in tension with the exhibition space’s own traces in the heart of the Petite Écurie building. Nourished by the artistic references that have accompanied his work over the years, Nicolas Daubanes’ narratives are part of a strange painting of history.

For this project, Nicolas Daubanes received support from Ressourceries 34, Montpellier.
Nicolas Daubanes is represented by Galerie Maubert, Paris.