Antoine Detaille, from Icons to Weirdos

Some weeks ago, we had the enormous pleasure of visiting the private atelier of Antoine Detaille. As it was our first visit to an artist's working space, we felt half enthusiastic, half shy, and we understood how privileged we were.

The visit was a story of transformation.

Antoine spent the previous 18 years as part of the artist duo Hell'o. We wanted to understand how that worked in practice. The compatibility was so high that they barely had disagreements and the pieces were organically developed by four hands and two creative minds. At the conception of each piece, there was more exchange.

Once the piece was conceived, execution was a natural duo dance. 

But there were differences. Differences that we would have never seen if the decision to split had not taken place. 

Moving away from abstract yet very defined shapes, Antoine needed to express a rawer form of art. 

The inspiration came from his daughter, connected with colour and intuition. The first solo project was a collaboration with textile artist Shishi San, making tapestries out of his daughter's drawings. 

The fear of not having a similar income while working on his own, made him rush. Antoine developed more than 200 drawings, interpreting different characters in a series called Weirdos. 

It does feel weird, surrounded as we are by constraints, watching an adult having so much fun.

One could say that it challenges or opens an artistic dialogue with an exhibition he hosted while he was part of Hell'o, called ICONS. We let the audience decide. 

A professor at the university where he studied, Antoine invites his students to develop their art both commercially and purely artistically. The best advice he can give is

produce.

Even when it does not feel right, even when the result does not please us, even when the future is uncertain. 

As for what to do with the pieces you dislike, we got another surprise: Antoine throws them away, ignoring the fact that in two weeks he may like them, that potential clients could love those pieces or, what is worse, that his agent had already shown interest in those pieces that he dismisses.

The light enters through the windows and we also feel we could sit there and draw, following our intuition, with no fear, and allowing pink, orange, green and yellow to fill our days. 

We now go to sleep more comfortably, knowing that under the too-often grey Brussels sky, someone is bringing colour to life. 

This visit was organised by the Artistic Programme of the creative community, Vanna, which you can get to know in an interview we had with them. 

Forever grateful. 

- An article by Leticia Vicario -