LPVDA

Antoine Guignard aka LPVDA hails from Switzerland, a country whose landscapes are punctuated by the emblematic architecture of wooden chalets. It was while sanding his own that LPVDA, a former graffiti artist, discovered the formidable aesthetic potential of this process, based on extracting the darkest surface layers and working on the paler lower strata of the wood, which give light to the motif. In this way, he creates portraits in the softness of this material, with the beige, brown and sepia tones imposed by the wood. Despite a technique that may seem relatively elementary, the result is highly expressive, animated by fine monochrome chiaroscuro. Antoine speaks of “street-poncing”, one of the rare techniques that doesn’t add matter to the support, but rather removes it, like Vhils’ “scratching” or “reverse graffiti” stencilling, a technique used to clean walls