Clément Mancini
WORDS AND PAINTINGS COURTESY OF THE ARTIST CLÉMENT MANCINI. PARIS FRANCE
@CLEMENT.MANCINI WWW.CLEMENTMANCINI.FR
My name is Clément Mancini and I was born in 1988 Thionville, a little city in the east of France. I now live and work in Paris. My work is really inspired by the vibration of the city and what surrounds me in my everyday life. I always liked drawing, but my attraction to painting really started with graffiti, a little over a decade ago. I immediately liked the freedom to paint on different surfaces and especially on a large scale. How the movement of the body impacts the line and makes it vibrate.
The notion of “gesture” is very important in this practice and still plays a key role in my current work. It also helped to educate my eye in the balance of the composition and the choice of colours or materials.
I have explored a lot with different materials (plaster, rust, photo transfers, etc.) in recent years, but lately I wanted to come back to a more “traditional” way of painting, using only acrylic on canvas.
My current painting? I would define it as spontaneous.
This allows me to focus more on the gesture with the brush and to explore a new way of creating textures and connections between elements. I also like to cut in the composition while doing it. Finding a good balance and breath in the composition is my main aim.
I like to start on canvas and let myself be guided by spontaneity. The impulsive gesture, , errors, parts that are erased or recovered… All of these steps constitute me in fine pieces. What interests me about this approach is not knowing where I will take my canvas, the freedom of the unknown.
My greatest motivation remains the desire to explore and discover new techniques that I can work with to develop my various projects. The Cobra and Surface Supports movements are also important to me. I also particularly like painters who are part of the second generation of the abstract expressionist movement, such as Robert Motherwell, Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler and Clifford Still.
I currently work in a studio at Porte De Bagnolet in the east of Paris. I have been working there for a little over a year now, it is an ancient building where some families used to live and we are able to work in it until they flatten all the blocks. I share the studio with a friend, which is great for exchanging ideas and discussing our different works.
