Poor Peril

JUSTIN STEPHENS

Poor Peril

  • Exhibition
© Justin Stephens, Galerie B-312, 2008.
23 February 2008 to 29 March 2008

—OPENING SATURDAY FEBRUARY 23, AT 3 PM

Galerie B-312 is pleased to exhibit in its small gallery, an exhibition of the painter Justin Stephens. We will not see any pictures, only shapeless masses of wax made by having left countless candles burning and melting, on a small wooden plate first, on a heap of wax afterwards; multicoloured shoe-laces lean against the wall, miraculously holding up straight; rolls of used masking tape; Foam earplugs planted in the wall.-No need for any special skills to make such objects. But how many hours for so many candles to burn? How many paintings to make these masking tapes coated with thick paint? How much patience to insert wires into shoelaces so that they can keep the shape the artist wants to give them? -All this time "lost" to not paint, was it lost all the same? Justin Stephens doing what he does while painting, or in the interval between two paintings, as if to take the imprint of that extra time. On the other hand, this excess time is also how long it takes, the time the artist needs, to realize the figures of time. Everything then goes in the order: the time in excess becomes the time it takes to represent the time, but on the condition that it appears as lost time.-It is the immense file of the form that Justin Stephens find it to open then.- isn’t the primary concern of the artist ’’to give shape’’ Is it deduced from a matrix, such as a mold, that is evoked by the paint coated tape? Does this mean that a form is also the expression, or the echo, of an original? Does the form suppose an origin from which it is induced? -This time, Justin Stephens opens a heavy file.

Summary of text by—JEAN-ÉMILE VERDIER