Lucas Compagnoni

Lucas Compagnoni currently works in Marseille. He began his studies at the Pavillon Bosio in Monaco before moving on to the Beaux-arts d’Aix-en-Provence where he obtained his DNSEP in 2023.

The artist is fascinated by human environments and behaviors, of which he strives to be an attentive observer. He pays particular attention to color and the tension that can arise between figurative and negative space, opening up spaces for projection. Reserve, lack and emptiness are all ways of drawing shapes and highlighting them through absence.

By reappropriating the format of domestic portraits, he places faces on the social bangs known as “invisibilized”. Fatigue and isolation are situations that Lucas Compagnoni aims to bring out of an intimacy that confronts the viewer. Accompanying his images with texts, he inserts literary or theoretical quotations about work and the words of workers. “When work is well done, you don’t see it. Like silence. Silence often coincides with the failure of recognition.” Le Blanc de Meudon, is a reflection of his committed words in which he shows the repetitive gestures of a surface technician cleaning windows.

One of the branches of his work stems from a reflection on the colonial heritage of garden flora. Tecoma capensis, cycas revoluta and sedum palmeri are just a few examples. The democratization of their ornamental use has blended them into the vernacular landscape. The palm trees that crown our coasts are perhaps the symbol of this exotic borrowing, which over time has made them part of local culture. Lucas Compagnoni is equally concerned with social, economic and ecological issues. The tourist economy, driven by political decisions, has contributed to a shift in their roles and status.

As part of the ESAAix Terrains research studio, the artist will exhibit his work at the Musée Granet in 2023. During the same year, he also exhibited at the Polaris Art Center in Istres. In 2024, the artist was in residence at the Villa Antonine in Béziers, during which he studied the villa’s gardens and exhibited his work there in May to mark the end of his residency. In August, he exhibited at the Chapelle Notre-Dame-des-Grâces in Roure. His work can currently be seen in Nuremberg at the Galerie de l’académie for the Metamorphosis exhibition.