Damien Cabanes: Between Calculation and Accident

The article examines the polymorphic practice of French painter Damien Cabanes, whose work spans multiple series from the late 1980s to the mid-1990s. Cabanes produced the Laques (1989-1991), Structures (1992), Autoportraits (1994-1995), as well as landscapes and painted plasters. His approach deliberately embraces genre proliferation, oscillating between programming and experimentation, calculation and accident. A key element is the drying process, which both produces and concludes the painting; the artist allows the work to partly make itself. Through contemplation of changes imposed by drying, Cabanes decides whether to repeat his initial gesture in another painting, abandon it, or modify it.