Philippe Segond — Secrets et autres — Almine Rech Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 23 → April 8, 2023

As in a dream.

There are no words to describe the work of Philippe Segond. Such words are perhaps yet to be invented…
Comprehending Philippe Segond’s work and penetrating his paintings means being transported into a dreamlike world formed of successive layers, covered, uncovered; it invites us to wander around, to weave in and out of his universe… as one would in a dream that makes no sense.
As in a dream… first, color — in solid planes, or sometimes unleashed — next, a blackout, the ‘deliberate suppression of information’. Here, more of a ‘whiteout’: the sweeping white cover, the consciousness, the lid on top, the forbidden secret…

And then, in the quest for our buried memories — akin to awakening with a start, and clinging to the details of a dream — Philippe Segond once more reveals the lower stratum. He plays at covering it up again, or the opposite: he updates, affirms, fine-tunes a fragment of it… This is a moment of introspection, a secretive perambulation, an exploration we can indulge in with absolute freedom, encouraging twists and turns along the way, allowing total immersion as we discover new clues which, in turn, elicit new revelations…