The drawings in Etienne de Fleurieu’s solo exhibition, “I’m taking time away to dream,” are imbued with a subdued violence. A modern alchemist who turns dynamic violence into understated art, Fleurieu uses the explosive power of the gunshot to transcend the two-dimensional medium, making it explode into the third dimension.
The visitor is drawn into the show via a large freestanding light box, Killing Time, 2009. The collage of discarded 35-mm filmstrips, riddled with small bullet holes, allows light to escape only through the punctures. Sequentially laminated onto a two-dimensional surface, the work creates, in effect, a spatial representation of the passing of time. It also provides an interesting conceptual strategy, since the artist shot at his films, literally “killing time.” Yet Fleurieu doesn’t stop just at film; he aims at paper, too. A close examination of Shotgun Symphony, 2009, reveals hundreds of bullet holes, each transformed into musical notes by a delicate crochet drawing.
A smaller-scale series titled “Hide and Seek,” 2008, depicts scenes from a winter forest: dark leafless trees contained within two overlapping palm prints are set against a white background. Here again, the textural aspect is predominant: While bullet holes created a visual and tactile texture in Shotgun Symphony, the texture in these drawings comes from a more intimate source: the artist’s hands. They seem to illustrate the contrast between the cold outside world and the textured warmth of the inner world, between reality and dream.
