Michel François

Contamination (Pommes)

In Michel François’s work Contamination (Pommes) it is the real, physical and emotional experience that stimulates creation which is therefore highly charged with a vital force. There lies also the profoundly and clandestine figurative nature of his work (Guillaume Désanges). Contamination is a constant in Michel François’s work. Contamination (Pommes) starts from the observation of a rotten apple that contaminates its healthy neighbor. This can be perceived as a classical sculpture, due to the manual labour involved—the apples are wooden sculptures—and the theme of a still life, but this work is also a three-dimensional drawing that gives the impression that the still life has managed to get away. It leaves an imprint on the wall in the form of a trail of burnt charcoal marking the passage of time in space thus referring to entropy and paradoxically to the living.