Visual Things by Laurent Bompard
“I used to daydream looking at pictures, imagining what it would be like to enter the picture itself and get lost in it.. As a restless observer, I also want to challenge people into really looking instead of barely scanning their surroundings. I want them to notice the beauty that they fail to see, and the best way to achieve this is to somehow confuse them by presenting interesting elements within a fragmented composition.” - Laurent Bompard
Laurent Bompard
I am a multi-disciplinary visual worker. I feed from all sources for influences and inspiration. Film, street fashion, dreams, tattoos, architecture, cartoons, graphic and industrial design, urban exploration, litterature, History, but most importantly from a continuous observation of my surroundings. The light diffracted through a glass, the reflection of a building on another building, shadows that break and redefine forms. All these sights give me the basic ingredients to prepare my images, all become characters or settings for my visual storytelling.
I concentrate now almost exclusively on my art, creating urban and industrial landscapes out of the photographs I take during my trips, urban explorations, etc… As you can see (hopefully), my aim is to present what appear first as a chaotic, fragmented, semi-abstract image to invite the viewer to explore in order to make some sense out of it. What compose the image are many overlaying views of a certain scene, from tiny details to textures, inverted perspectives, elements hiding/revealing other underlaying elements.
When working as a graphic designer, I use the visual elements like a chef would use ingredients: Each element interacts with the other wether trough its positioning, strength, flavour or character. Each ingredient has a story, each typeface has its own set of cultural references which can be used “as is” or redefined by using it in a different context. All in all, I find that all these activities overlap and rely on the same skill: the ability to tell a visual story.
