Marc Vuillermoz

As an artist and academic, I marry research and artistic creation to shed light on the way in which new media shapes our perception of the sensory world.

Working essentially from images found on the Web, I explore in my painting the particular nature of digital images, their degree of reality, and the effects they produce on the viewer.

The images from which I draw inspiration for my artwork are not photos, but raw images free of any aesthetic intention, (screenshots taken from amateur video clips, webcams or the Street View function of Google Maps).

What I seek to exploit in my paintings is, therefore, the pictorial potential of these imperfect images which sometimes border on abstraction. This aesthetic approach is accompanied by a reflection on digital imagery, whose usage in the post-photographic era has profoundly changed our understanding of the surrounding reality.

My paintings are oil on wood. The technique involves superimposing layers of spatula-worked plaster and glazes. The result has a distinctive vibratory effect: the contours of objects branch out, the material disperses in unexpected directions, and the asperities of the support sometimes belie the brushstroke. It is in this permanent tension between the control and randomness of the gesture that I conceive my artistic approach.