Spanish fantasy Print

My name is Axel Lang (28) from Paris, France. I am currently based in New York City, working as an economist for a financial institution. I came to creating art very recently and rather unexpectedly. Prior to moving to NYC, I was based in London where I visited museums every weekend to ease the pressure off my busy workweek. However, beyond their relaxing aspects, those visits quickly turned into reflective journeys. My mind was flooded with new thoughts, ideas but also many unanswered questions. So I came to believe that if Art can raise questions, Art might help in answering them. That’s how everything started. My art is by definition influenced by my own education, social environment and experiences but I aim to tackle universal issues people can connect with easily. My first series of work features portraits of imaginary characters whose stories convey a psychological and/or social perspective. I explore and emphasize those perspectives by using unnatural vivid colors, flat surfaces, distorted lines and proportions. The imaginary nature of the characters gives me more freedom in the creation of the paintings but above all, facilitates and enhances reflections and thoughts about our lives. In effect, the underlying subject matter of those portraits is not the characters depicted but the reflections about our human condition. Because technique and details can limit our emotional response to art and hinder our reflective process, I paint in a very simple manner, letting black lines and colors speak for themselves. As Odilon Redon put it, “My originality consists in putting the logic of the visible to the service of the invisible”.