DaviD GUMBS

David GUMBS
Ar t - Mu lt i me d i a - Photo g r aphy
w w w. d av idgu mbs. c om
Artist statement
My artistic approach is based on a famous quotation from XVII th century French
philosopher and chemist Antoine Lavoisier : «Mass is neither gained nor lost, merely
transformed». Thus, life’s cycle, infinite scale, memory, and the Sacred, are themes
that emerge from larger topics of interest such as landscape, inner landscape, body
landscape, field of vision, and off frame. Concepts close to Chris Marker’s « In Memory », Ernest Pignon Ernest’s « Arborigènes », Desiree Dolron « Sacred Conversation »
and Karl Blossfeldt life’s work.
But what primary impulsion, what necessity, drives me to express such diverse, hybrid
creative universes ? Both the vital need of random drawing, painting, interactive
video art, computer generative art, and the process of creative accidents, nourish
my research. The shape revealing random gesture in my drawings and paintings is a
reflection of a wandering quest. Where are questioned : phenomenology of perception through the visible and the invisible, the Macrocosm and the Microcosm, and
the genesis. These points of interests compelled me to leave the French West Indies
around 2001. Where I searched for signs of the « unseen » shown for example by hominoid trees, or by clouds with figurative shapes and In-situ surreal like automatic
drawing. From Paris, Cuba, Japan my wandering process is sometimes expressed by
macro photography stills of life (see «Macrotidien» series), aging walls, faces of time
and more.
My painting and drawing universes are shaped from thousand of interlaced lines.
Often born from the center of the art board they grow in a circular process, just
like life’s growth. These immersed spaces reveal personal mental projections from
the unconscious. This process is the result of an automatic drawing act. Which is
sometimes the witness of a runoff discharge. The interlaced texture created with and
without colour, plays an interactive rhizome plot of each visitor’s unconsciousness.
VDO - Interactive video
Soleil Magma - Interactive video
Indicible Camouflage - Interactive video
Indicible Camouflage - Interactive video
I Am Caribbean - Interactive Video
Singular Moment Series - Video
DEEP, Interactive video installation in work in Progress
◆ Left
Magma,
digital painting,
Paris 2006
◆ Right
Fractal Folies,
computer generative art,
Paris 2009
www.cytoplasme.com, vidéo, net art
Archéologie mentale, vidéo, net art, www.artchipel.org
Untitled, acrylic on paper
36x47cm, Paris 2006
Interior Jungle, pen on paper
36x47cm, Paris 2006
Séries Vibration, acrylique, 2011
◆ Left
Emergences,
Latitudes 2009,
Paris City Hall.
900cm x 300cm
◆ Right
Project The Rising.
800cm x 500cm
Festival Croisée
d’artistes 2007
Untitled, acrylic on paper
500x180cm
Wall Design Martinique, 2011
◆ Left
Ecorc(é) series,
Various size
◆ Right
Surreel,
Various size
My photography work (shot
in the caribbean, Europe and
Asia), and my net art, reflect
the living. They sometimes
suggest embodied composite
creatures hidden deep in our
unconsciousness
(see « Ecorc(é) » series).
These mystical «presences»
question metaphorical interactive journeys in the human
body seen in my « DEEP »
interactive video installation.
The trees from our childhood stories reveal hominoid
shapes, sometimes a bestiary, sometimes orgy scenes,
romanticism postures,
or Goya like paintings.
Other times they appear as
vertical impulses celebrating
celestial beings. As time goes
there are more and more
beings. Just like a fellow traveller,
I call them my wandering
friends, the vegetable kingdom
souls, the forest Gods.
David Gumbs
Born in Pointe-à-Pitre Guadeloupe on March 15th 1977
2004 - FRED FOREST “Internet à la loupe”, Fête de l’Internet, Online Worldwide launch.
2003 - Paysage Envisagé, Cité des Sciences et de l’industrie National Museum,Paris France.
Education
Award / Grants
2002 - Master in New Media Conception & Design, Les Ateliers/ENSCI, Paris.
2001 - DNSEP Art, 5th year diploma Visual arts school, IRAVM Martinique.
1999 - DNAP Art , 3rd year diplôma, Visual arts school, IRAVM Martinique.
1996 - Baccalauréat S, Lycéee Polyvalent des îles du nord, Saint Martin.
Solo Exhibitions
2010 - From this point on, Galerie The Shore, St Martin.
2008 - Mythologie 1, private hosting, Paris France.
Selected Group Exhibitions
2012 - Prome Encuentro Bienal Arte contemporaneo di Caribe, Aruba.
2011 - Caraïbe en Expansion, CCR Fonds St Jacques, Martinique.
2009 - Latitudes 2009, Hotel de ville de Paris, Paris France.
2009 - Wall Design, Dune, Paris France.
2009 - David Gumbs & Carole Arrat, Dune, Paris France.
2009 - Entre-Vues, Photographie contemporaine en Caraïbe, Fondation Clément, Martinique.
2008 - Panorama 8, Le Fresnoy, Tourcoing France.
2007 - Festival Croisées d’artistes, Ile-de-France France.
2006 - Festival Variations caraïbes, Paris France.
2005 - Festival Arborescence, Ecole d’art d’Aix, Aix en Provence France.
2004 - Paysage Envisagé, Espace Landowski, Boulogne – Billancourt France.
2012 - Aide Individuelle à la création, DAC Martinique
Workshops
University of Versailles St Quentin en Yvelines, 2006
Visual arts school of Orléans, 2005/06
Visual arts school of Martinique
Art Résidencies
La Saline Royale, Arc et Senan 2009
Visual arts school of Besançon, Besançon 2009
L’avant-Rue, Paris 2007
La Cité des Sciences et de l’industrie, Paris 2004
Websites
www.davidgumbs.com
www.artchipel.org
www.cytoplasme.com
Création David Gumbs - 0696 33 86 15 - www.davidgumbs.com