THE ROGER PROJECT
GREGORY WATIN
ABOUT
French artist born in 1976,
Grégory Watin settled down in Arras around ten years ago.
It is there, in a studio that used to be a car repair shop, that
the French artist produced a body of works deeply rooted in
roaming, collage, spontaneous gestures and recycled raw
materials. Grégory Watin is one of those open-minded artists
with their eyes and ears always turned to other horizons,
characterised by less aestheticism and more authenticity.
His works take the form of paintings where Street Art meets
photography and digital printing, with no hierarchy of genres
or techniques. We met up with him.
Gregory Watin’s style is lively, made of collage and detail. It captures urbanity itself,
the pressing meticulousness of a modus operandi, the wanderings of its creator,
who we imagine pacing the streets like a scientist in a laboratory, in search of new
and necessary discoveries, the kind to document the world around him with a
unique point of view. This is the style of an artist who does not care about what is
beautiful, who finds “a lot of poetry in the unaesthetic”, just like the practitioners of
New York wildstyle, the origin of Urban Art. This is the style of a 47-year-old man
who travels to cities throughout the world, not as a tourist but as someone who sees
in every trip an opportunity to capture a new energy and a different atmosphere.
The style of Grégory Watin is that of an artist who prefers to immerse himself in
street exploration rather than in Urban Art encyclopaedias. He knows its history
inside out, but prefers to learn about those people who “tag on rubbish bins or
find their way to crazy, sometimes inaccessible places, in order to immortalise
their name”. And the French artist even shares a thought with us, in a time of
excessive gentrification: “I’ve come to believe that they are pushing me to always
go further,” he says, laughing. Grégory Watin knows only too well how certain
districts have evolved. In Bushwick, “there’s still an alternative, underground
economy, but everything is a little less authentic than it was even ten years ago
for sure.” Wynwood has “always been the temple of Street Art in Miami, and it’s
true that there’s a lot going on there. What I liked about it was its social diversity,
those places where tramps rubbed shoulders with artists. It’s less trashy today.”
If Grégory Watin has turned into a sociologist of American streets, it is simply
because he has spent a lot of time there, particularly in Miami, a city he is deeply
connected to. He continues: “It was the first international city to give me positive
feedback, to offer me attention that I couldn’t get anywhere else. And on top of that,
there’s Art Basel, which is huge. All the people likely to understand your paintings
are together in the same place, during the same week. Personall
I go there every
year, as an outsider, with the idea of seeing as many works
as possible and to find inspiration.” Next December, the
Frenchman will be presented in the official selection for the
first time – a victory, of course, and the reward for a decade
of work and research.
Grégory Watin owes the famous style he forged in his
150m2 studio in Arras in large part to his use of raw
materials such as wood, aluminium, and cardboard,
but above all Plexiglas, his trademark, which he uses
to add depth to his work. “Not only does it add a clean,
almost medical touch, but it also serves as a screen, as if
Plexiglas was opening a window onto the material used in
my paintings,” he explains, happy to talk about his practice
in detail. Ultimately, Plexiglas allows me to emphasise
some elements, hide others, and create an interaction
with the public, who often move closer to the works to
see what’s going on behind.”
Grégory Watin's paintings are brightly coloured and
meticulously executed, but also very skilled (the result of
lengthy photographic work, knowledge of digital printing,
etc.). They are both urban and contemporary. “I don’t want
to just be a graphic identity, which is unfortunately very
common in Urban Art,” he admits, with a rueful air. “If you
look at the works I showed in City Life, my last exhibition,
you can see that they are all very different, even if you
quickly realise that they come from the same artist.”