Taken from a quote by the writer and researcher in plant ecology Jacques Tassin, “The tree gives us the intimate time of the world”, the title of Yann Bagot’s first personal exhibition in a gallery is an invitation to take the time to perceive, on paper, the breathing of the plant world.
Made during a creative residency in Brussels, within the South African Foundation for Contemporary Art (SAFFCA), the works presented in Belfort have as their theme the tree and the forest, between rustling leaves, vibration of light and blowing wind.
Always with Indian ink and salt, the artist pursues his sensitive research on our relationship to the world in a movement where he literally makes “Body with the landscape”, as the art critic Marie Maertens explains in her text written especially for the exhibition.
“Guested in residence at the Abbaye de la Cambre by SAFFCA.EU in the spring of 2022, in search of anchoring in the place and in the moment, I drew the trees of the park. Carried by the high and meditative presence of the abbey, guided by the awakening of plants and the breakthrough of light through the foliage, living stained glass, I was struck by the continuity of the tree and the air.
These field drawings opened up new possibilities for me in large format, in the studio. Seeking to give substance to the organicity of ink, testing water and salt on paper, I drew in one breath, immersed in a flow of air, light, matter . Body to body with the lungs of the world, to which our lives are connected.
Harvester of the sky, as the ecologist Jacques Tassin reminds us, the tree seizes carbon and concentrates it in a majestic, incredible form, which always escapes what we expect of it. As an extension, the idea that the air that circulates around us will in turn become foliage, tree, animal, man or ocean, opens up sensory horizons.” Yann Bagot
