PARIS.- Philippe Baudelocque traces his cosmic bestiary in white chalk on a black background, with his infinite universes, handprints, UFOs in perspective, intermingled magmas and vegetal stars, all of which make for a series of pieces composed of mysterious, desacralized symbols. His fragile, ephemeral frescoes contain cells, shooting stars, crossed lines and other patterns – his “codex” – all sketched in advance in a notebook.

At Palais de Tokyo, for his first large-scale project in an institution, Philippe Baudelocque refurbished a monumental staircase – between a spatial elevation and a fall into the abyss – where he weaves connections between different series, plunging the spectators profoundly into his atomic trajectories. Between the lines and shadings of these unstable landscapes, the macro meets the micro, the physical becomes mental, the vertical defies the horizontal, the solid answers to the liquid, strength cohabits with the vulnerable, and the wild takes on a domesticated look.

Philippe Baudelocque was born in 1974 in Yerres (France), where he lives and works. Raised by a family of musicians, and a father who is an animal painter, he started out as an artist in the graffiti scene of the late 1980s: what he was to keep from this experience is a passion for working on letters, the monumentality of painting, as well as the energy and desire to confront art with the environment. After graduating from the Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 2002, Baudelocque exhibited at Drawing Now (2014), at the Museum of Modern Art MACRO (Rome) and his work has entered the collections of the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Orléans, and of the Centre Pompidou. He has produced ever more XXL murals, from Paris to Hong Kong, without forgetting Canada. He is supported by the galerie du jour agnès b. (Paris).

“When you make a drawing on a wall, you can feel its depth: what you’re doing is purloining the entire energy of the building’s mass. I’m interested in quantum physics, mathematics, rhythms, proportions, and the laws of nature. For me, the term ‘fusion’ describes the translation into an artistic language of the laws governing the structure of living beings, which I convey by using the equation - + | = +. I have made my own the principle of functionalist architecture as expressed by the Chicago architect Louis Sullivan, while adapting it to my own ends: “Form follows function follows fusion.” In my work, I try to remount the chain of causes. At the Palais de Tokyo, I intend to compose the space on a daily basis, like a blog, over several months.” Philippe Baudelocque