Providence

Hugues Micol

Éditions Cornélius

Providence brings together around fifty boards, around a certain idea of America - each board having as its title the name of a small town lost in the depths of the United States and whose name, by what it evokes or simply by its sound, knew how to inspire the author. Conceived as an exercise in style and started more than ten years ago, this series of drawings is made of variations from a very simple scenario: a bandit, a policeman, food. Sketches – always composed indoors, in the living room of an apartment, a bar or even a hotel room – which show a series of characters sometimes mafia, sometimes decadent, always colorful. Symbol of a modern and mixed America, we find a box of pizza or a gun, enamelled here and there, over the pages. Hugues Micol's drawing - a mixture of watercolor and gouache - is like a palimpsest, the light or opaque layers being superimposed over the construction of these luminous scenes. Page after page, these scenes come together and come to life, the characters come to life before our eyes, jostling and splashing us as we go.