There are many factors that force us to adapt our gaze to the enigmatic atmosphere of French artist Pol Taburet’s works. Starting with the artist’s syncretic references, which include Caribbean mythology, horror films, and even trap and hip-hop verses. All this, tilted against a backdrop of Western art history, results in a youthful update to our contemporary visual culture. But in addition to his personal repertoire, which can be difficult to notice at first glance, Taburet respects his creative instincts while working. Perhaps that’s why he manages to draw us in at the same time as repelling us from this liminal universe that he creates in the heat of the moment. He is not afraid to give us sensations that oscillate between fear, strangeness, and curiosity.
His universe is inhabited by spirit beings with mysterious intentions. Made using airbrushing, the finish on their bodies, usually misshapen, reveals hypnotic textures that border on the supernatural. Disfigured, ghostly, yet humanoid, these beings in a state of profound mutation perform sometimes delirious situations. The surrounding environment looks like an even more terrifying substrate of the so-called liminal space. Famous among subgroups of chronically online youth, these are places of transition to which we don’t directly belong. However, they evoke ambiguous feelings of fear and familiarity. In response to this sentimental demand from Generation Z, of which the artist is also a member, his settings emulate rooms and corridors that only exist in the liminality between what we briefly recognize and what only comes from a hidden place.
This splendid combination of factors is at odds with the references linked to Western painting, such as nods to the works of Francis Bacon. However, Taburet never lets this dialogue get lost in the evolutionary chronology of art history. Nor does he commit himself to representing the spiritual content of his works in an explanatory way. Instead, he makes his subjects beings of momentary meaning, without giving away details about the rituals and ceremonies they seem to carry out. We, as witnesses, are condemned to grope through this universe in search of answers, but in the uncertainty of finding them.
