|
I consider my work a metaphor of the darkness of mankind. As an artist, I |
 |
Joël Lorand is based in France.
Joel Lorand, Personnages Floricoles, 2005. Mixed media on board. Courtesy of Henry Boxer Gallery.I have an interesting name for my workshop: I call it my “creative womb.” I have recently moved alone to a house in Alençon. In my former home, I had a huge room dedicated only to my paintings. Now I have less space.
I consider my work a metaphor of the darkness of mankind. As an artist, I believe I have a prophetic mission. My message is one of danger for a society running into ecological and technological disaster. But at the same time, I can’t help but have hope. I need to scatter my paintings with flowers and heart garlands to balance out its dark side.
Everything is connected. There is a link between each sphere—the natural, the human, and the spiritual. In my paintings you can see that every womb is bound together. My images simultaneously represent planets, cells, and pregnant bellies.
My world is made entirely of feminine entities. I can’t help it. I was never able to draw anything masculine. The reason for this may be in the fact that I’m fatherless, and that I grew up surrounded by women.
I was first tempted to work as an illustrator, but my teacher pointed out to my parents that it was not a real job. Since I didn’t want to revolt against my family I decided to become a pastry chef, a field in which I could still create something out of nothing. In 1994, three months before the birth of my son, I started painting. I needed to give birth to something myself. Two years later I moved with my family from Paris to the countryside to do nothing else but paint and draw.
It took me a few years before finding my style, eventually abandoning paint for colored-pencils. My work is representative of the duality between the beautiful and the ugly, the good and the evil, the microcosm and the macrocosm. I sometimes hear people say: “I would never hang this in my house!” It gives me sorrow, but then I think that these same people wouldn’t live with a triptych by Bacon either.
