FABIEN MERELLE

Freshly graduated from the Beaux-Arts, former resident of the prestigious Casa Vélasquez in Madrid, Fabien Merelle distinguishes himself through his style, at once realistic, minute and oniric. After having tamed his childhood drawings, which he completed with humor, his latest series takes its author as its main subject.Invariably dressed in pyjama trousers, a conspicuous sign that the perception of the world is done through dreams, the boy takes us with him on a fanciful ride. Fabien Merelle loves the shadowy world of tales. He re-entered it by rediscovering his childhood drawings which had been carefully preserved. He completed it with his experience and his imagination. The dream can easily turn to nightmare when it shows a young man of 29 years, with hardened and emaciated features, suffering from the attack of a trunk which invades and devours his body. This ain't no Disney cartoon. A sort of Robinson Crusoe of modern times, Fabien Merelle comes out of his cave to confront a funny world referencing ancient myths and legends as much as major figures of art history or the tradition of anatomical drawing. He fights. He also plays with puns and quotes which he transforms with a telling stroke. The drawing are showing an obsession for detail veering on mania and pointing out the precision of a line layed minutely with China ink. If he pays homage to the Little Nemo comics, he projects the spectator in a universe much more complex, mixing evil spirits, watches and childhood fears. Following the unrolling of a dream, playing with the free association of shapes and ideas, he seems to say that everything is transforming, metamorphing, opening itself to the most diverse interpretations...