Kineasthesia: Rémi Delaplace on Gravitation, Trajectory, and Levitation

Talk about your participation in our exhibition Kineasthesia: Art in Motion. What attracted you to this project?

The titles of my paintings, such as I'm not in a place; it's the space that's inside me (Je ne suis pas dans un lieu c'est l'espace qui est en moi), refer to conceptual issues encountered in my practice and philosophical pursuits: inhabiting the body, gravity, touch, chiaroscuro, and phenomenology. All my work as a painter is nourished by my practice of dance-contact-improvisation. In concrete terms, the issues of the body's relationship to space, to itself, to the Other, gravity, the creation of movement - pre-movement - are at the heart of my work. All these practices are physical: playing with contact, touching and being touched, opening up the ‘inner ear’, working on separation, attention. 

This physical work is underpinned by a whole range of conceptual and philosophical ideas, from the phenomenology of the philosopher Merleau-Ponty to the practice of Hubert Godard, not forgetting the work of the philosopher and art historian Didi-Huberman in Faits d'affects (2023).

How do you define kinaesthesia in the context of your artistic work?

The relationship between movement and space runs through all of my work via the representation of bodies: objects situated, oriented, and moved in space. Directions: ground-sky, perspectives, states of gravity, the near and the far, and depth, give rhythm to my painting. My solids are perspectives, my gradations depths. 

The idea is to offer an open view within the ‘frontality’ of the painting's frame. Movement is as much internal as external, as much in my paintings as in the act of creation, of painting. Working on my body to open up my qualities of attention to myself and to space involves all my senses: sight, touch, gravity through the inner ear, listening. Inhabiting myself to be more in touch with what I'm creating. This allows me to not only integrate kinaesthesia and attentional work into the execution of my pictorial gestures, and to think of concepts related to movement that can be applied to painting, but also to create and think about the creative process.

Attentional work is not concentration. On the contrary, it's about being open to your relationship with yourself and with space: allowing yourself to be permeated by what surrounds you: sounds, space, breathing, using all your senses to be in touch with the act of painting. When I paint, that means I'm not trying to create a form. It's only the quality of the gesture that's being worked on by this quality of contact that's at stake. In my paintings, I tend to create open spaces that exude power as a potential for movement. 

What elements of movement or dynamism do you incorporate into your work in this exhibition?

Je ne suis pas un lieu c'est l'espace qui est en moi refers to dance. I set out with several intentions: to inhabit the space, to be in the world, to play with directions, to be moved and moved, while remaining within the framework of the painting. The initial idea was to create an aerial painting, a metaphor for a body in movement. 

On the one hand, the folded form is representative of an exterior and an interior. The aerial plane is painted, in a gesture, by the direct contact of my hand with the smooth, fluid material of the paint: touching and being touched, you can almost taste the bold and delicious colours. The idea is not to do, not to paint, but to be in the affect: a tonic quality, in directed attention.

On the other hand, the line creates a tension between the subject and the frame, the movement of the subject and the space. I have brought together, in a single sign, the notions of direction and gravity: the two grounds, contact with the ground and contact with the inner ear, up and down. The result is a line of movement open to infinity, holding and balancing the folded form in a depthless space.

The works Clair Obscur and Impesanteur share the same creative process of montage: first, a background. Second, a form in which a reversal takes place. The background becomes form through a process of unveiling. The background becomes the subject, changing from object or setting to subject.

These two paintings combine Merleau-Ponty's reflections on phenomenology: what appears, with those developed by Didi-Huberman in his lectures on Les Faits d'Affects. The idea of ‘making a sign’ in reference to the hands painted in the darkness of prehistoric caves, parietal art. The idea of ‘chiaroscuro’ as an opening to possibilities, in reference to the work of Caravaggio: the power of the apparition, of the unspeakable.

For the background, I played on affect (tonicity, the desire for direction), the pleasure of touching the canvas, the materiality of the paint, of being touched by the colours. Nothing is represented, everything is an event, a tonic movement. The work on form is a search based on multiple sketches, an open movement. Through a process of concealment, I cover the background to reveal the form whose material is the background. For the painting Clair Obscur, I play with perspective and diagram in an aerial movement (a reference to Rosalind Krauss). The theme of the second painting is ‘weightlessness’, the falling of the body, outside of gravity.

Your work tends to explore the relationship between space and movement. Can you tell us more about this exploration? 

I come from the Support Surface movement. I've exhibited at the Réalités Nouvelles Salon. All my pictorial work tends to free me from habits, representations, primary images, and movements inscribed in my body and mind. On the fringes of expressionist and figurative painting, I advocate a new form of painting that takes up the codes of perspective without any narrative.

Initially, my work focused on using landscape as a metaphor for the body, drawing parallels with geological processes like plate tectonics, faults, and strata. This led to reflections on the concept of the fold, symbolising the interplay between interior and exterior. From this, I created body-objects that explored the relationship between the body and space, gravity, and levitation, challenging the viewer's perspective.

In later research, I delved into the intersection of dance and theatre, examining concepts such as setting, stage, and event, where movement emerges in space as a form of drama. My series on touch and affect further investigated the idea of ‘what appears’, focusing on affect, tonicity, and the reversal of background and figure, with movement originating from within.

My latest series, Clair Obscur, explores the idea of making a sign, where painting becomes an act of unveiling. Marcel Duchamp's assertion that 'the spectator makes the work' prompted me to question the artist's role and led me to investigate the power of the gesture—its origin and significance.

There is no space without the potential for gesture. I've learned to distinguish between power and potential. In the relationship between space and movement, perception plays a crucial role—movement in space is necessary for perception to occur. This relationship also involves duration and time.

Several avenues of research continue to influence my work. My focus is on the quality of the space-movement relationship: exploring space as emptiness, as the potential for action, and as a form of separation. Merleau-Ponty describes space as the flesh of the world, while Hubert Godard suggests that "it is because I inhabit myself that I can create another space."

The Japanese concept of ‘Ma’ refers to an interval, a space that is also a duration, signifying a void between objects or events—much like a pause in music. It is an empty space-time, yet one filled with possibilities yet to unfold. The search continues.

What are the main influences that have shaped your artistic style?

In 2005, I discovered the work of John Maeda at the Fondation Cartier and Michal Rovner at the Jeu de Paume, which sparked my interest in the intersection of theatre and visual arts. This interest led me to attend lectures at Le Cube and at the École du Louvre, where Bernard Blistène focused on the works of Samuel Beckett. My curiosity about behavioural and interactive art deepened, prompting me to study Contemporary Art and New Media at the University of Paris 8, where I explored digital technology, interactivity, and the role of the spectator.

I fell in love with the immersive works of James Turrell and Véronica Janssens, where the experience of being enveloped by colour is profound. Additionally, I am deeply moved by the colours in the frescoes of Roman villas, such as Villa Livia and Casa della Farnesina at the Massimo Museum in Rome, as well as the Pompeii frescoes in the Archaeological Museum in Naples. The rich red hues of the imperial period, combined with the use of perspective and the quality of space, resonate with me.

Two works by Caravaggio continually challenge me. The Vocation of Saint Matthew in the Church of Saint-Louis des Français in Rome captivates me with its expressive eyes and hands, the gestures of separation, and the presence of voids. Meanwhile, The Beheading of St. John the Baptist in Malta prompts me to reflect on my relationship with scale, frontality, and the significance of background in space.

What is your vision of contemporary art and the role of the artist in today's society?

What kind of art are we talking about? The world of art is incredibly rich and diverse, encompassing countless forms of expression: dance, imagery, painting, installations, and more. Yet, despite this diversity, art inevitably falls into categories: institutional art, scholarly art, popular art, the art market. These categories are constantly shifting—street art moves into museums, and comics find their way to auction houses.

Creativity often emerges where we least expect it, with artistic movements intersecting with ecology and sociology. However, conservatism and the repetition of forms are always close by, even in contemporary art. True novelties are rare and therefore precious. Among all this diversity, only a few forms of expression endure over time, and painting is one of them.

For the artist, the key is to understand their position. The artist's role is to pay attention to the world and to maintain a vision of it. It's a task done for others, for those who are focused on different concerns. Ultimately, it's a job of observation and awakening.

Can you describe your creative process, from the initial idea to the final work?

My creative process evolves as I mature and as I work on projects related to the concepts I'm exploring. I always start with a problem I'm focused on, then choose a process that reveals that problem.

I prepare my canvases based on the chosen process—crumpled, folded, unbleached, or prepared—stretched or un-stretched on a frame. My recent paintings involve montage. I begin by painting a toned-down background where nothing is represented; everything is an event, a tonic movement. Then, through a lengthy process, I construct the form with the goal of bringing the background to the forefront.

For example, in my painting Image, Imagination, Space-Time, I selected the fabric purely for its tactile quality—a fine, silky texture, with a blue colour that resonated with me. For the background, I applied paint directly to the fabric with my hands, focusing on the tactile pleasure of touching the smooth, warm paint on the fabric. This process kept me connected to the ground and the surrounding space, guided by my inner ear and driven by a desire to explore tone and direction. Next, I moved on to constructing the piece, using sketches to bring the background into the foreground. The quality of the colours, flat tones, and gradations is crucial in distributing the space and revealing the background, transforming it into a central figure.