
All the colours of darkness and paradox in its myriad manifestations is central in Julien Segard’s monumental work, Dark Was the Night, engulfing the entire room of the space it is exhibited in. In the layered folds of the work, lies the betrayal of darkness disguised as light, where what is apparent is equally akin to what is not. The work, installed in folds like a curtain, questions the paradoxical nature of lightness and weight, inside and outside, private and public, where the dimly lit enclosed room acts as a veil for isolation but also allows for permeation and contemplation. Materially too, it confronts paradoxes with a dense foundation in charcoal, juxtaposed with the brilliant delicateness of gold paint. The explosion, seemingly resembled in Dark Was the Night, is as much about the weight and violence of the combustion it depicts as it is about the lightness of release and freedom.
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