Benoît Platéus

Benoit Platéus proposes an original perspective on visual (de)construction, which establishes a dialogue of potential connections between the real and the fictional world of images. While he used to focus on photography (1996 – 2004), he now favours processes for revealing images through a variety of graphical techniques. Whether he enlarges the photocopy of an image found in a newspaper, manipulates it to make a stencil (Page 21, 2007), or traffics the pages of a manga strip by removing certain parts and adding his own collages (Untitled, 2008), Benoit Platéus is intimately elaborating a new language of the image by superimposing distinct universes. In front of his works, we are no longer sure if the image is appearing or disappearing. The image (de)forms and stretches until it starts to decay (La bête noire, 2006; OUAA, 2007). It always had something fluid about it, like spilt mercury that hesitates to move (L'apparition détaillée, 1998, reflective adhesive vinyl), a liquid that does not flow but breaks up and spills in fragments. The eye seeks to reconstruct reference points, but looses itself, wanders and surrenders. It is no surprise that the artist has used an optotype (De gauche à droite, 2001), an optical reference grid, to gauge visual acuity. And yet it matters little whether the eye has been adjusted or not when in other photographs it is the reflection, the visual gap that is captured at a precise moment (Untitled, 2001). There is no doubt that these images and operating modes are also the breeding ground for a vast register of metaphors.

Cécilia Bezzan