Exhibition in photos: Brecht Evens Le repaire de la méduse

Le repaire de la méduse. Brecht Evens. Atelier Michael Woolworth. Paris. December 8, 2022 - March 4, 2023. 

A selling exhibition of Brecht Even's latest work is currently on display at the Atelier Michael Woolworth, which is located a stone's throw from the Place de la Bastille in Paris. Billed as a series of woodcuts, etchings and lithographs from 2020-2023, this collection features a series of 50 unreleased images that will eventually appear in Evens' forthcoming book Le Roi méduse, to be published by Actes Sud BD in 2024. 

The world of lithography is not an entirely new venture for Evens as he previously worked with the Atelier Michael Woolworth in 2016 for the Artist's Edition of his book on Paris in the Louis Vuitton Travel Books series. Evens mentioned that his deep dive into lithography at the Atelier served as a coping response to the strict confinement regulations during the Covid-19 lockdowns in Paris, and that learning about the process and experimenting with these new techniques in a fully equipped studio that exclusively uses hand presses served as creative inspiration during uncertain times.

The pieces on display, all available in limited editions of 25-40 prints, suggest that Evens is an able student who not only grasped the science behind lithography but who has also found ways to apply his unique linework and color palette into the process. Individually, each piece is an impressive marvel of detail, scale and labour, especially the larger multicolor pieces. That said, it is also a rare opportunity to see Brecht Evens' work in strict black and white via the lithographic process. Collectively, the pieces show an artist open to expanding his technical acumen to display his new experiments in the very environment that they were hand-produced, with all of the tools, machinery and paper stock in plain unarranged sight.   

All of the pieces in the show are scanned and listed on the Michael Woolworth website with their individual titles, price, edition number, technique and support information included. Below are photos that were taken at the packed vernissage of the exhibition, taken and arranged in the order of their installation inside the studio.

-Nick Nguyen

All photos taken by Nick Nguyen

ANIMA: The Brussels Animation Film Festival 2020

The annual Brussels Animation Film Festival, officially known as ANIMA, takes place this year over the last two weekends of February, timed perfectly with the Carnival school holidays. Offering a wide range of national and international all-ages programming, ANIMA will screen 300 films over 10 days at the Flagey Cultural Centre and the Palace movie theatre. The festival also devotes a bulk of its resources to engaging with young children through interactive installations, exhibitions and animation workshops. This appeal toward pre-school and elementary school kids is telegraphed by the poster for this year’s festival which features a cameo by Petit Poilu, the popular character of a BD series of pantomime comics drawn by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Bailly.

The poster for ANIMA 2020 by Pierre Bailly. Petit Poilu is the character in the left-center of the seated audience with the black face and red nose.

The opening event for ANIMA 2020 was the screening of L’extraordinaire voyage de Marona, which had debuted at several animation festivals at the end of 2019 but was now making its Belgian premiere.

The most striking aspect of the film from a comics perspective is the aesthetic of the animation itself. Belgian comics artist Brecht Evens served as the graphic consultant for the film, responsible for establishing the visual style and character design. Both Brecht Evens and director Anca Damian were present at the opening event to present their collaboration.

Director Anca Damian (centre) and Brecht Evens (right) at the ANIMA kickoff event. Photo by Nick Nguyen.

Director Anca Damian (right) and Brecht Evens (centre) at the ANIMA kickoff event. Photo by Nick Nguyen.

Brecht Evens spoke about how he was brought on board the project via the persistence of director Anca Damian, who sought him out immediately after reading his comics to insist that his vision was exactly what she was looking for to portray the world of the film as seen through the eyes of a puppy. With his usual charm and humour, Evens humbly clarified his role in merely establishing the visual library for the film, and gave full credit to the film’s animators for the labour in making that vision come to life. The trailer for the film (presented below with English subtitles) offers a glimpse into how these animators did justice to the Evens style.

 L’extraordinaire voyage de Marona marks Brecht Evens’ first foray into the world of animation, and he follows in the wake of other fellow Euro comics cartoonists making their inroads into feature-length animated films (Emile Bravo and Lorenzo Mattotti, among others, come to mind). Here’s hoping that films like Marona reach a wider audience so that more unique visions and styles from the comics world can be expressed through audiovisual images.

Nick Nguyen