Antoine Espinasseau

L'Almanach 14 : Antoine Espinasseau

Born in 1986 in Challans, lives and works in Paris.

The work of Antoine Espinasseau was presented for the first time by Eric Troncy in The Seabass (2011) exhibition, for the 13th Ricard Foundation award. He is the youngest artist presented in L’Almanach 14.
Antoine Espinasseau studied at the National School of Architecture of Versailles. He is an artist, photographer, architect and urban planner.
At the Florence Leoni gallery in Paris, he led a reflection on the lobby as both a space and life ritual For him, the lobby is a gateway out of time, a passage between  interior and exterior spaces. It is a corridor between two worlds that everyone ignores.
This basis for reflection is shown in this exhibition with the pontoon as the essence of architecture.  It is simple and basic, yet has the power to project a romantic picture in our imagination that makes us instantly think of nature. The work invites the viewer to stroll between a place where to live and a desire for escapism. Made of extruded polystyrene, the pontoon is a life-size model, that even details the wood grain. The model refers to the constant instability between the idea of the architect and his final production.
A character, a life are always present in the work of Antoine Espinasseau. In this case, a hybrid character that is almost animalistic when confronted with nature is displayed on a wall. This illustration by Edouard Manet was created for Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem L’Après midi d’un faune.