© Photograph by Anselme Laurent.
Antoine Selah in his studio. August 2024.
Born in Mont-Saint-Aignan (FR) in 1993, Antoine Selah is a French visual artist who currently lives and works in Paris (FR).
Coming from a graffiti background, Antoine Selah initially adopted what he describes as a «classic» style. It was during his design studies in Nantes that he turned his lettering towards an increasingly graphic style. Gradually, he moved away from the typography around his pseudonym towards a non-figurative language. He then developed a freer, more abstract style of painting, born of the constraints of his graffiti practice: rudimentary tools, lack of time, various supports, economy of means. All these factors led him to focus his attention on line and rhythm, and to deploy an impulsive, intuitive energy.
Since 2019, Antoine Selah has structured his artistic practice around three fundamental principles. His aim is to ‘SEIZE THE EPHEMERAL’. He does this by observing and immersing himself in his immediate environment, capturing the visual and aesthetic shocks that surround him on a daily basis and archiving them in ‘urban herbariums’. These impressions are then transcribed in a visual and artistic way through sketchbooks, drawings and paintings.
His artistic research is guided by a willingness to take risks, both literally and artistically. For him, it is essential to leave room for failure in order to move forward and question established structures. The street is his first playground. It’s there that he finds the supports and main graphic elements for his creations, which he captures in photographs, and sometimes even materials such as abandoned paint pots. Antoine Selah compositions oscillate between combinations of figurative elements and more abstract forms.
By painting in the public space, the artist trains his eye, observes the city, looks for new spaces and arouses his curiosity by always being on the lookout for an opportunity to seize. It is through this daily observation that new ideas are born. Alongside her outdoor painting, Antoine Selah has been experimenting for some years with other media, including drawing, collage, photography, publishing and painting in more traditional formats and on more traditional supports.
Text by Élodie Evezard.
Mediator and lecturer.
Art history teacher.
