1, 2, 3, couleurs

Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, France
October 2023

As part of its actions for inclusion and diversification of its audiences, the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille opened a free space for children aged 0 to 6 in the heart of its atrium in the fall of 2023, in partnership with the art initiation center Mille Formes from Clermont-Ferrand. The idea is to provide young children with their first multisensory artistic experience centered around shapes and colors through contemporary artworks.

Alongside Claude Como, I was invited to present my Espaces Manipulables (Manipulable Spaces) project, which was developed in 2022 in collaboration with the art initiation center Mille Formes. Additionally, I was asked to paint the exterior wall of the exhibition space in the museum’s atrium. I executed the generative painting Modo n.°55 in seven days.

Modo n.°55 generative mural painting:

Espaces Manipulables, installation:

“1, 2, 3 couleurs” is a project conceived and supported by the Mediation and Audience Engagement department of the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille / City of Lille. It received sponsorship from Rigolo Comme La Vie in collaboration with the We Act for Kids Fond’actions, as well as in-kind sponsorship from Unikalo.

Photos: Eltono

 

Modo n.º52

Generative mural painting
Paris La Défense, France
September 2022

Project commissioned by Art Entreprise for Paris La Défense and QPark.

Intervention inside the elevator’s shaft:

Thanks to Arsène, Ulysse, Elie and Mohamed and his crew.

Espaces Manipulables

Mille Formes Art Center
23 Rue Fontgieve, Clermont-Ferrand, France
April 2022

Mille Formes is an art initiation center for very young public (0 to 6 years old). It was conceived by the city of Clermont-Ferrand in partnership with the Centre Pompidou.

“Espaces Manipulables” (manipulable spaces) is a set of three interactive and immersive installations which goal is to invite the visitors to take part in the evolution of the artworks around them. A creative immersion that goes in contradiction to the sacralisation of the artwork and that, on the contrary, invites the public to touch, move and experiment with the objects forming the art. Thus making the visitor being art of the artwork and able to observe the results and discover the existing interactions between shapes, colors and space.

Desperfectos

SET Espai d’Art (at Galería Nueva)
Madrid, Spain
October 2021

For the solo show Desperfectos, I presented three projects: Plotter de paseo (walking plotter), Transportistas (shippers) y Chaparrones (rain showers).


Plotter de Paseo (Walking plotter)

Following my research around the idea of making art while walking, I made a walking plotter that uses gravity and my body’s movements to activate some mechanisms and create drawings from my paths.


Transportistas (shippers)

I built five boxes to ship five artworks from my studio in France to the gallery in Madrid. A box is meant to protect the art, but I painted the art on the outside of it. Instead of protecting, the box helps the deterioration of the art. I imagined this project as a collaboration between the shipping companies and me. I built, painted and handled the boxes with maximum care until the very moment I handed them over to the shipper. At that point I lost control of their condition. I was only able to discover the result when I arrived at the gallery in Madrid.

– T1 and T2 were sent with La Poste (Colissimo),
– T3 was sent with TNT,
– T4 was sent with UPS,
– T5 was sent with DHL.


Chaparrones (Rain showers)

Artworks created for the solo show Sérendipité at the Hangar 107 Art Center in Rouen in July 2021.

Following my researches around the idea of artwork alteration with uncontrolled external factors, I decided to take advantage of the Normandy weather to walk around the art center each time it was raining, protecting myself under an artwork. The colored parallel lines sequence traced with felt pens are defaced by the water drips which make the ink bleed. because the exposition time is the same for each outing, the characteristics of each rain shower can be clearly seen in the result. Big spaced drops, light rain or strong rain shower all leave a different imprint on the ink.

Set Espai d’Art
Galería Nueva

More information: https://galerianueva.com/galerias/setespaidart/

Sérendipité

Hangar 107 Art Center
Rouen, France
July 2021

Eltono-Serendipity-20

For the Sérendipité (serendipity) solo show, I presented eight bodies of work: two generative mural paintings, four street experimentations, one interactive mural installation and a generative sculptures project.

Averses (rain showers)

Following my researches around the idea of artwork alteration with uncontrolled external factors, I decided to take advantage of the Normandy weather to walk around the art center each time it was raining, protecting myself under an artwork. The colored parallel lines sequence traced with felt pens are defaced by the water drips which make the ink bleed. because the exposition time is the same for each outing, the characteristics of each rain shower can be clearly seen in the result. Big spaced drops, light rain or strong rain shower all leave a different imprint on the ink.

SM7

The SM7 sculptures are a reiteration of the Modo n.°7 protocol using volume. Eight different shapes are generated and laid out so the sculpture is stable. Once the balance is found, the molded pieces are assembled and the sculpture is fixed.

55 panneaux (55 panels)

Following a generative protocol, 55 abstract compositions were painted on 50 x 50 cm wood panels. The hanging system allows to easily move the pieces around. This way, all along the duration of the show, the public can switch the panel around to make the composition evolves.

Modo n.°46

Puting the technological breakthrough of NFT in generative art to good use, I uploaded a code online so 16 collectors could generate 16 digital abstract compositions. Each one of them was painted in a cell following the generation order. The final result was discovered at the end of the painting because no simulation of the complete composition was made.

https://www.eltono.com/lab/projects/modo46/

RUFO

An abstract composition is painted on a wood board and a rope is attached to it. I walk the board, painted face towards the floor, on a looping route that has been defined beforehand. The result is discovered at the end of the loop. In Rouen, I chose to walk eight boards on paths going through the docks and bridges around the Seine river.

Modo n.°45 (Modo n.°7 reiteration)

After discovering a perfect 7×7 grid on the central freestanding wall, we painted the generative wall painting Modo n.°45 following the Modo n.°7 protocol.

Pierres peintes (painted rocks)

When I arrived at the art center, I went outside to look for rocks. Each rock was painted with three different color coats. The rocks were then brought to the right bank of Rouen and I kicked them to make them roll following predefined paths. Some of them were dropped in the Mont-Saint-Aignan slopes and one, the biggest, rolled on the left bank around the art center.

Détours

Random paths (x5) were executed in Niort in 2017 for the show La Ville et le Mouvement curated by Winterlong Gallery.

For a predefined time, I wander in the city with a dice in my pocket. At each street intersection, I roll the dice to decide where to go next. The GPS data of the path is recorded and a sculpture is made out of the result. The sculptures are shown like abstract artworks resulting of my movement in the city.

Overview of the show:

Thanks to all the Hangar 107 crew, Jean Guillaume, Nicolas, Marc, Kim, Théo, Caro, Marilou and Gabin.

Pictures: Juan Cruz, Jean Guillaume Panis and Eltono.

Modo n.º41

Generative and collective mural painting
Gisèle Guillemot High School, Mondeville, France
November 2020
52 participants

Project carried out with 52 students as part of the Festival Palma.

Modo n.º39

“10 kolommen” generative and collective mural painting
Heerlen, Netherlands
August 2020
130 participants

Project produced by the Stichting Street Art Fondation and curated by Approved By Pablo.

The building has 130 apartments. After measuring the wall and analyzing the structure of the building, I found an easy and logical way to divide the façade in 130 cells. Before starting the painting, we went door to door and asked the residents to run a generative protocol to create what would be painted in each cell. Almost all of the 130 shapes on the wall were generated by the residents of the building.

Production : Lars Ickenroth
Assistant : Dazetwo
Photographer : Sanne Gijsbers