Philippe Fangeaux's Surgical Paintings at Chapelle Saint-Jacques

Philippe Fangeaux's exhibition at Chapelle Saint-Jacques-centre d'art contemporain in Saint-Gaudens, France, ran from December 7 to October 28, 2006. The artist employs a precise, surgical approach to painting, cutting and grafting fragments from memories, news events, and childhood resources. His works blend abstraction and figuration, where abstraction is not a purification but a direct appropriation of backgrounds or skies, and figuration is a fragmentation rich in shifting viewpoints. Fangeaux creates series like 'gueules' (mugs) reduced to chaos and brutality, 'Télésouvenirs' from TV news debris, and large canvases where fears and anxieties magnify and collapse spaces. The paintings resist closure, constantly transgressing registers and boundaries, inviting viewers into a permanent, lively construction site. Didier Arnaudet authored the critical text.