After the Grand destruction, the apocalypse, darkness takes control. The remaining humans are captured by forces of evil. Their naked body’s are altered, flesh replaced by stone, veins expanded until they cover the skin. These unreal human creatures are they still capable of loving? Is their a glimpse of beauty? or even tenderness?
To capture the heart of the work of Richard Marchand in a few words is a difficult task. His work is diverse in appearance but the dark feel is always around. And does darkness has it’s piece of beauty? In the art of Marchand it sure has. The world he is creating and the figures that are bound to it have a beauty of it’s own. The fascinating beauty of death coming to live, human transforming into machine, almost in a naturalistic way. Sound strange this word naturalism in relation to his work, but it is the same effect the surreal world of Salvador Dali has. It appears to be real, but the images are impossible. This twist makes these kind of image’s understandable and assessable in one way, but totally a mystery in an other.
His work is not erotic art in the usual way. Eroticism, or sexuality seems to be absence at first. But actually love, bounding and connection are used as a subject in his art. And one of the mayor theme’s in all his work is the human body. Deformed or not, sensual or the opposite, maybe even both at the same time. The tender couple of strange humans, just before they kiss each other is a nice example of cruelty and tenderness coming together.
For me the art of Marchand is bringing up al kinds of questions, and I look at the images admiring the artistic approach, imagination and technical quality. On the other hand it is kind of disturbing. And to make the experience complete you should download a sample of his music, it has the same atmosphere as his visual art.
The website of Richard Marchand
