French artist Christophe Avella-Bagur has the ability to render figures with a photorealistic believability, but his approach celebrates human folly rather than striving for a clinical sense of perfectionism. In 2005, he began his Floating Souls (FS) series, an ongoing body of work that captures his sitters at different points in time. Moving faces overlap like in a long-exposure photograph, creating a surreal disfigurement that alludes to a metaphysical understanding of space and time existing as an inseparable entity. The different facial expressions worn simultaneously by a single person also allude to the internal conflicts we constantly face as a result of our feuding impulses. The artist currently has an exhibition on view at Galerie Richard in New York, “Face FS Spirit Of Resilience / Part 2,” and recently closed an installation he set up in a cave once used by the Knights of Templar in France, Château des Templiers, in Gréoux-les-Bains. Take a look at his latest work below.
“Spirit of Resilience / Part 2” will be on view through May 31 at Galerie Richard in NYC.
“Face FS Farglivert” at Château des Templiers, in Gréoux-les-Bains, France, on view through April 27:
