Xavier Veilhan
Manfredi
2018
Carbon, plywood polyurethane finish
36 x 30 x 200cm.
Xavier Veilhan treats his human silhouettes with variations in scale. Some appear to be looked upon from a distance while others are larger than life. The works play with the ambiguity of representation. Despite the discrepancies in scale, the viewer has a clear impression of a figure as well as an object defined by its abstracted components. Veilhan’s subjects are old friends or strangers as opposed to professional models or celebrities. Through their abstracted representation, they enter into a more generic existence defined by attitude or posture, in the same way as figures in historical portraits epitomised an era through their pose, costume or even through the artist’s treatment of painting. Manfredi is made from carbon, a material at once sophisticated, contemporary, fundamental and basic.