The canvas is his world

The canvas is his world

Artist strives to present inspiration through portraits of joy and happiness

SOCIAL & LIFESTYLE
The canvas is his world

His mouth is a river of phrases and run-on sentences flowing over tongue and teeth. His eyes, below straggly brown curls, bristle with energy and ideas. For Henri Lamy, art is all about the face. So when his palette knife plops white into blue and smears the new shade across the canvas, he leaves an impression of a nose to explain a point.

Lamy communicates best this way. The feelings come first, then he thinks in images and finally speaks with words. For Lamy this is the natural order: It is through painting he has found his truest voice, although he is friendly and talkative even in a second language. The 28-year-old French artist, in Bangkok for a painting demonstration tomorrow at Rattanasinsok Studio, and an exhibition opening at Modern Gallery in June, combines figurative and abstract techniques to create portraits that are in demand around the world.

Whether his subject is a child playing in the street, a famous figure such as Joss Stone or Buddha statues, all his works focus on the face. How this emphasis came about, however, Lamy could not quite say.

“Nothing makes me decide this,” he shrugged. “It’s just spontaneous. First came the artwork and then I get help from different people to try to explain it. If I did this from the beginning it’s because it’s in me, and this is my way to express those feelings. So the feelings became paintings and then people explained the paintings with words. But I’ve not been able to provide words for them.”

As he spoke, Lamy added some blue streaks to his first painting of a Buddha statue. Wherever he travels he tries “to draw a sort of postcard of the place — I know it can be badly interpreted” by absorbing the culture and eschewing the most touristy locations. Religion is an element he felt needed to be addressed in the exhibition, and it also provided a challenge.

“There’s something technically speaking really interesting, at least at the beginning, because the balance between light and shadow on the face is much different than it usually is. It’s a gold surface and there are many more reflections; it’s much more complex. But it’s also easier ... it’s easier and more complex in different aspects.”

He turns to the canvas and lets the palette knife explain, demonstrating the greater layering and heightened use of colour compared to a nearby portrait of a boy. That piece, based on a fraction of a photo taken while wandering through Bangkok this month, is more typical of his oeuvre.

“Why I do art is because I think it has to represent the spark — I don’t know if the term is right — I call it the spark, the edge of passion that is inside everyone. My paintings are not always very important in terms of subject matter. The emotion that I mostly like to represent is joy and happiness. Even if everything around could be sadness or poverty, I try to be optimistic because this is what guides us to be better.”

Lamy’s father, a more figurative and academic artist who enjoyed a long career in Paris, has also helped guide his improvement. Being a member of the artist community 59 Ravoli exposed him to valuable public feedback at an early stage in his professional career, but his father tends to offer some of the best constructive criticism.

“One thing that my father tells me that I don’t always like to hear is that he wants me to paint in a very academic way. When I use lots of colours that don’t really represent the reality, for example here [in the Buddha] I’ve put green and lots of colours that don’t make sense compared to the reality, he would tell me that it’s not proper.

“This is the only critique I don’t listen to because I think it’s an important aspect of my technique.”

Supportive as his parents have been, it was not his father but rather a taxi driver who prompted Lamy to become a full-time artist — with all the uncertainty that entails — almost five years ago. At the time he was an art director under a man who was “a bit of a lunatic” and painting in his cellar and selling portraits on the side.

The taxi driver, who has since taken his own advice and become a painter himself, encouraged Lamy to give 100% of his time to his passion. Yes, the driver told him, there would be a risk, “but if you don’t attempt it you’re never going to make it”. These words have resonated with Lamy in the years since.

“I think that’s when I started to really think about fate. You do good, you engage in something, and maybe not this particular thing is going to reward you but you are going to get something good from somewhere else. And that’s happening every day.”

Lamy has made an impression in parts of Europe, Asia and the US, but not every experience has been positive. He has enjoyed painting iPhone cases at a major art show in Yokohama, but had a gallery in China effectively seize three of his best works from an exhibition after they demanded money. He took part in last year’s Malasimbo art and music festival in Philippines and presented a portrait to the soul singer Stone, but had seven paintings stolen when a Frenchman proposed being his agent.

“I forgot to sign something, to get an agreement or some security. And then he doesn’t say anything. I lost track of my paintings. I know I could waste time going to the police station trying to declare it and they probably wouldn’t find them, but on the other hand I know that something good is going to come to me. It’s all about fairness. If you do things fairly then you’re in peace with your conscience.”

One of the better experiences was meeting Zhang Haiying, a Chinese painter whose Anti-Vice Campaign series explores the effects of a crackdown on prostitution. Zhang’s work is strikingly different from Lamy’s — the women are all deliberately faceless — but the images are quickly found in the “inspiration” folder on the Frenchman’s laptop. (The keyboard is paint-splattered in an accidental homage to Jackson Pollock, another influence.)

Not only was Zhang a friendly and humble man, but seeing his large-scale artworks showed Lamy how much meaning it was possible to convey without showing the face or eyes.

“The whole work was sort of minimalistic work on very expressive parts of her body such as arms or body or dresses. For me the most important thing comes from the eyes and the face, but he would do something that was so expressive just from the posture or a gesture.”

Also important is the surprising influence of rap and reggae music, and it was only recently that the young French painter came to understand why it moves him so much.

“The reason is because rappers, they are firm in their identity and their difference in society, the same difference I have, but they react in an aggressive and retaliatory and proud way whereas I’ve always been drawing by myself, in a sort of hidden and reclusive way.

“I admire the way they were able to communicate, because I wasn’t able to do it like this. And the fact that I’m getting more and more confident about my painting and inch by inch able to express myself and able to be ... more consistent about my way of life and painting.

“Painting is something really important in my heart. I know that whatever I do, I want to paint as much as possible when I’m able to do it. I have goals to achieve.

“This could be a little bit too egoistic to say so but I consider this whole painting stuff as a sort of religion that I can be the prophet of. If I want to spread a message around the people I have to be working on it every day, all day. So I wake up and I think about painting.” n

 An exhibition of Henri Lamy's work will be held at Modern Gallery, Charoen Krung Soi 36, from June 11 to Aug 13.

A CHANGE OF PACE

Henri Lamy’s first visit to his former girlfriend’s family in Daet on the Philippines island Luzon had a profound influence on his art. The family was poor, but happy, and in the months he spent there on multiple visits he was able to consider life and his work from a new perspective.

“This was the first time I discovered living conditions where people have nothing but they really are full of joy,” Lamy said. “It’s really inspiring. So you ask yourself what’s really important in life. Do you have to get money, to have goods, buying more and more? Or is it something different?

“I started to live in this house with two rooms and maybe 20 people living inside. I lived there for a month. It was so different from somewhere I was used to living.”

He took photographs with a mobile phone, using four models in particular, and later using these as the basis for a series of portraits. However, something was weighing on his conscience. While this will not directly benefit the subjects of the artworks, it is in line with Lamy’s philosophy of “just doing good things” and believing it will be repaid later.

“Myself, inside me, I was saying I’m going to make a lot of money out of these poor people. This is unfair. I recently found a good solution.”

In the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 5,000 people, philanthropists in New York have organised a silent auction to raise funds for the survivors.

“I gave them three that I considered the best paintings in this series. Maybe they won’t get sold, but if they do then 100% of the proceeds goes to aid the victims of the Haiyan typhoon.”

“I’m happy but I know it’s just a drop in the ocean. It’s just a small contribution. I don’t consider myself as big now but I can help in my small measure.”

faces to faces: Clockwise from top left, ‘Julia’ from 2010, Henri Lamy carrys a painting called ‘Homeless’ through the streets in the Philippines and ‘Goodbye Philippines’.

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