Vincent Van Damme

 

Born and raised in Paris, Vincent's parents met at work, fell in love, gave life to a boy which they decided to name after the best painter of all times, because it was fun, just fun, no pressure at all, kid... Just take these pencils, in case you want to draw a Christmas tree or a field of sunflowers...

 

Then they both went live in the south of France, giving enough space to their prodigal son so he could develop his own creativity in the City of Lights. Too bad, Vincent sucked at painting, barely used colours at all, and preferred to draw grotesque characters in the margin of his school notebooks...

 

Miseducated like Lauryn Hill, Vincent decided to take no decisions for his future as an artist, to abandon all ambition and live freely the old Carpe Diem way. Of course that led him, track by track, to an inner adventure across time and space, and to kilos of papers stained by Chinese ink...

 

In an endless battle between black and white, he drew no sunflowers but cotton fields, he drew the ghettos of Chicago, the raw portraits of anarchists fighting in Spain, the forgotten corners of his city, the exhausted faces of migrants locked in the heart of the woods... 

 

When he looks back at his work, Vincent understands that he wants to talk about the clandestine, the hidden, the exiled, the concealed, what is behind the red curtains. Yes, because he likes to put a touch of red from time to time, like the one on a clown's nose. Just for fun, no pressure...

 

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