Fecteau Paper

Natasha
11/12/12
ARTZ 106

              

               Vincent Fecteau, a San Francisco born sculptor made his name in the art world with his unusual yet ordinary use of objects used for his work. Things like foam core, cardboard, seashells, string, rubber bands, paper clips, kapa board, walnut shells and Popsicle sticks are used most often to create his beautifully crafted sculptures, which are usually done over the course of at least a years’ time. Fecteau takes his time to ensure his sculptures are things of beauty, layering his materials and textures to reveal a painstaking creative process. As alluring as these works of his are, it was actually the piece he had in the exhibition in Berlin that drew me to his work. Since the 2000s, Fecteau has been working exclusively with papier-mache`, turning them into complex pieces usually placed atop pedestals for viewing. However, in 2012 Fecteau showed a cycle of sculptures that were mounted on specially-made hanging devices so they would be able to be viewed from any angle since the front, back, top and bottom were all reversible. What’s even neater is the fact throughout the exhibition the sculptures were taken down and rotated to show off different aspects.

               Fecteau’s works in the Berlin exhibition show really are a sight to behold. Each piece is beautifully crafted and has numerous shapes and curves throughout it that really give it some eye appeal, though I do have a thing for curves so I may be a little biased. But really, these are incredible pieces full of cool colours and depth, angles jutting inward and outward, twisting around or bending back into each other, all of them folding together so perfectly and neatly into one package that you can’t take your eyes away because you’re so focused on where one of the pieces will go, where it will come out, where it may stop, if it stops at all. From every angle there’s something new to look at, and there’s no way to soak it all in at once, it needs to be explored. It needs to have the chance to show what it has to offer, and the only way to do that is to really explore it, look at it from every angle; from the side, from the top, upward, downward, and angled. Every way possible, because these really are so interesting and beautifully made it’ll leave you speechless in the sense you have no idea what’s going on with it... but you don’t care.

               What really attracted me to Fecteau’s work was the sheer fact that his sculptures are so weird. They are, they really are, and I like that. There’s always something new to look at with them, and his use of low saturated cool colours really works with them, and cool colours aren’t something I’m a huge fan of, but for some reason in these they work. I think something else that may have drove me to choose him was that many people would probably not understand them, hell I don’t even understand them, but these are the kinds of sculptures that it’s okay if you don’t understand them, because they’re so beautifully crafted it doesn’t really matter. You’re just enjoying looking at them.

               Fecteau’s dominant 2D elements in this work would definitely have to be non-representational, non-objective, complex patterns and colour, and all in one. These all really just look like blobs of geometric – yet organic – shapes and patterns that all fit together in a very non-objective way with lovely colours to compliment them. What’s interesting too about the way he paints his work, is he doesn't do it in an “artistic” way, but rather in the way a house painter may paint the walls of a home or the outside. Fecteau relies on bold stripes of colour and emulsions of paint on his pieces. Any kind of shading or spatial effects are actually the result of permitted dirt and stains that have derived from the repeated layers of paint Fecteau uses before he settles on a final palette. An even more interesting fact is that when Fecteau is creating the basic forms of his pieces, he actually cuts them up and re-assembles them to create the shapes and flowing movement shown in his final pieces.

 I really would recommend anyone to take a look at Vincent Fecteau’s work, it’ll take two seconds to look him up and it’s definitely worth it. His works have everything; fantastic eye appeal, complex patterns and shapes, and leaves you really questioning it and yourself as to what it is, and why do I like it so much.