In Conversation with Paul Paillet

KG: Everyday objects frequently appear in your installations: sofas, spoons, radios, or lamps. What draws you to these seemingly banal forms?

PP: I work with objects with which I have a form of intimacy. Aluminum foil is an object at the heart of the notion of heroin consumption. It is an object that establishes a link with a form of violence, of radicality, which is linked to abandonment, even to the dreamlike. In this sense, it is a material that can transport you to many things in the end, but one can also apply this to other types of objects, such as the spoon. The sofa returns a lot because it is almost the central place of consumption, but not only, it is also a place of reunion, family or friendly, a place of rest and well-being. For me, some objects carry within them a strong duality, which can form a point of encounter with otherness.

KG: The colours in your work oscillate between pastel tones and almost toxic neon aesthetics. What emotional or psychological function does colour have for you?

PP: Yes, the use of natural pigment tends to be associated with characters who become not strong and central figures in the paintings, but almost objects in the process of disappearing. They are caught in toxic settings, treated with industrial pigments, notably associated with sofas. A certain violence then emerges from the environment. The characters seem to always float in the compositions as if detached from their surroundings. In this sense, color is quite important. It allows me to evoke a particularity in the relationships within the subjects I treat. The characters, by their blandness, their absence, seem to emerge from these brilliant, shimmering, or toxic settings. The characters thus appear to escape the contingencies of their environment.

KG: Your installations often feel like fragile stage sets for an inner condition. Do you think spatially, narratively, or sculpturally when building an exhibition?

PP: A great deal is made of framing and composition. At the Centre d’Édition Contemporaine in Geneva, for the exhibition Fascination for Fire, the spectator entered a breakfast that was set up with several objects that evoked this time of day. The light had been modified to give the sensation that the scene takes place at dawn, in bluish tones. There was a newspaper, a radio, spoons, a cup, referring to that moment when you read the news, listen to music, whatever, but you are caught in that floating moment of the day. At Pauline Perplexe for the exhibition Arcauria, there were two rooms, one was linked to interior scenes with characters on a sofa, there was a large format with four figures on a sofa. One can see something of the order of family, community, etc. The room next door was dedicated to outdoor scenes with a character who enters and leaves different compositions, in vertical formats. One could see buildings in the background, door frames. The character danced, perhaps in front of a mirror or a shop window. It was a room dedicated to movement. At KALI Gallery, it was all the more intense that the title was a passage from Madame Bovary, a character linked to the interior par excellence. The space is divided into little scenes, represented by the lamps.

KG: Many of the works create an atmosphere suspended between comfort and unease. Is this a consciously constructed psychological space?

PP: This is linked to a desire to work around a particular period of adolescence, marked by intense confrontations, anger, and violence turned against oneself or towards the outside. The idea is to evoke the ambivalence of objects, theoretical or physical, emanating from daily life: both repellent and totems. At the same time, there was the question of this rebellion against objects, which sometimes symbolize the family, parental, or even friendly sphere. This rupture can be expressed in a brutal way, with a rejection or a sudden departure. All this revolves around familiar objects charged with precise memories, capable of evoking almost sentimental atmospheres. Finally, my work also addresses the violence contained in these objects and the feeling of imprisonment they can provoke, a violence of which they are the vehicles.

KG: Your work brings together a wide range of cultural references — from Hermann Hesse to Buffy, K-pop, or technofeudalism. How do these fragments find their way into a piece?

PP: Yes, there are many borrowings from popular culture. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a series that marked eight years of my life, from 10 to 18 years old. But it has also been the subject of fairly sophisticated critical analyses in the last 20 years. This series accompanied me from childhood to adolescence. There is a character I use a lot, whose name is Spike, and who is a vampire. The vampire is a living dead, and it is a term that often comes back to categorize addicted people or drug users. These are often considered as no longer quite belonging to society or the world of the living, but at the same time they are not quite dead. Spike illustrates this in-between state well; he is the only vampire who goes out in the middle of the day, who drives a car in the middle of the day, who continues to drink, who smokes, in short, who continues to lead a living life although he is perfectly dead and feels no effect, for example, related to alcohol or cigarettes. I allow myself to use references that are a bit far from each other as so many accidents or rash choices.

KG: Your works never seem to narrate autobiographical elements directly, but rather shift or encode them. Why is this distance important to you?

PP: It is never easy to talk about oneself in a totally direct way. We often use a vehicle or a transitional object to address this subject. This approach is notably present in Hermann Hesse, who does not hesitate to evoke the malaise of an individual caught in a larger context, such as that of the entry of European countries into the First World War. In Demian, we follow a character in conflict with his family, school, etc. I particularly appreciate the freedom that Hesse allows himself, even if the subject addressed is potentially serious. In my case, one cannot necessarily talk about a total distancing, but I must admit that I do not have a particular affinity for autofiction. This remains, however, an important starting point for my work, without being an end in itself.

Themes such as escapism, addiction, collective desire, or emotional dependency recur throughout your work. Are you more interested in art as a site of transformation or confrontation?

The notion of addiction supersedes all others within my work, that is to say that it governs a whole series of potential interactions of the intimate order within the work, through "sub-places" such as questions around need, attachment, dependency, community, violence, social links, etc., etc. which are all meeting places with the spectator.