Sylvain Dubrunfaut spread out on his work table photos of children and adults lost in a poetic jumble of pencils, sketches, outlines for future compositions and post it notes. He shows me first of all his small works, as a form of initiation process because by entering into these, the spectator can then better appreciate the larger pieces. There is a large canvas a metre tall of a little girl with a pony tail, but I don't look straight away even if I feel her eyes staring into my back. First the smaller works (in fact paper stuck on board). There are many children in this series and Sylvain Dubrunfaut identifies each one with their christian name. The different perspective or focal point of the face allows the spectator to meet the eyes of the subject in an intense eye to eye contact. These eyes staring straight at the photographer fearless and unblinking. The work clearly benefits from the instantaneous nature of photography where a moment is captured and frozen in time.

Sylvain Dubrunfaut's work is continually evolving: In 2003, there were the large paintings of strange meetings painted in mauves, sepias and greys, colours chosen to give an air of fantasy. In 2006/2007, he moved towards everyday life, where the subject, often taken from the waist upwards, tells a short story of life: Gabriel, thoughtful in front of his empty plate, Pauline with a slightly sulky expression, daydreaming on the metro, Cécilia, putting paintings on the wall as she settles into her new apartment.... These simple yet precise gestures have a theatrical feel, as each person is placed in situ, caught in a break of activity or in a moment of latency. It's as if he is putting the subjects on the stage. It is no surprise to learn , then that the theatre is close to the artist and in fact from 2002 he has been interested in the performing arts. He also paints scenery for both theatre and cinema and in one of his works recaptured the movements of an actor in the middle of a crowd (L'Intermittent). These gestures and the outline of scenery around the body create a form of narrative almost like a scene from a play. As his work has progressed though there is less and less background interacting with the subject. For example the images of couples like the mother and child work (Elise and Romane) have now been replaced by an image of a child alone on his parent's lap in the middle of a crowd, (Clement), here the child's face takes over the piece, touching the edges of the canvas which is barely big enough to contain him.

This composition shows a new approach: The face fills the canvas with eyes as big as the palm of your hand, almost something monstrous before our eyes. Sylvain Dubrunfaut has rediscovered the fantasy theme of his early work, but now leaves out the blue or mauve halo around the subject. Only two big open eyes, a nose, and a mouth fixing your regard. No head is the same scale as that of the spectator and to be face to face with these strange and unequal disproportions is troubling. This full frontal regard with someone looking out from a blank empty space, someone unknown, yet at the same time familiar, can make the viewer feel nervous or ill at ease.

Of course it's not just an enlarged photograph, and this person made up of flesh and bones is turned into a new creation by the use of light and contrast. Sylvain Dubrunfaut explains this transformation by saying «They are my subjects. It's my subject which interests me». The word 'subject' has two meanings. The subject of the painter, the thing to be painted and subject in the sense of the individual to be portrayed. It's the treatment of the subject as an object that is of first interest. Where to put the light on the cheek, how to bring alive with a pencil the form of the jacket around the neck with the use of hatching. He works in effect with two different techniques: pencil on paper and oil on paper or wood. He sometimes uses the two different media to paint the same person. In the drawings, the technique of hatching gives the skin a mat quality where one can sense the blood moving below the surface. Whereas in oils a touch of white and yellow can put the sun on the cheek.

So that's «The subject to paint» with the all the technical challenges that encompasses. But « My subject » is also of great importance. These subjects are taken from photos old and new, of friends, friend's children, photos given to the artist or shots taken by the artist himself. This image taken of another person (illegally) is tied with the fact that the artist takes great pleasure in giving back this image anew. There remains too a certain familiarity with the subject of the painting who is identified by their christian name. By looking hard Sylvain Dubrunfaut has managed to get to the real character of the person, this becomes particularly clear when we see two works done of the same subject. For example Maxime taken from a photo aged nine and then as an adolescent. These two moments in life can embody the story of a life in motion, like in 'The portrait of Dorian Gray' by Oscar Wilde.

The last work, (a work in progress perhaps), shows the face of a young child filling the paper. The outline of the face is unfinished and the cheeks seem to have been eaten by the white of the paper. We can clearly understand from this intimate size piece (A4 format), the way the artist constructs his work, working from the centre out to the edge of the face. We can already perceive from this sketch of the face the future identity and what might become of the subject, who is not yet fully mature still in the process of discovering the world, a world of experiences which will leave it's traces and lines on a face which at this moment is still pure. This head to head with the model of the picture who must speak and who is lead by a silent artist in front of him, produces a strange dialogue which becomes fixed in an enigmatic way : an object of study which is above all a subject.


Laurence Boitel, october, 2009
English translation : Paula Norman