BENOÎT PIÉRON

Four years ago, he returned to the hospital with a cancer. Upon reliving his childhood trauma, he realised that his works are intimately linked to his survival of HIV/AIDS. Through his practice, the guilt he experiences as one of a few survivors is transformed into something generative – a compostable energy that through practices of care and attention renews material detritus into forms that carry the voices, secretions and powers of others.

When his last cancer went into remission, he began assembling hospital-reformed sheets, with the help of a phenomenologist friend, materialised into toys, beach mats, flags, gymnastics ri-bbons, floor lamps and armchairs. The colours are softened by the intensive washing the sheets were subjected to. In spite of this hygienic treatment, “clean stains”, the indelible traces of previous uses remain.

Piéron seeks to produce alternative expressions of the disease, instead exploring it as a site of potential. Far from the romantic heroism of the usual metaphors of illness, Piéron places himself in a grey and joyful zone. In a solo show entitled Illness Shower at Sultana Gallery, Piéron viewed the exhibition as a celebra-tion of illness.

^{Text courtesy the artist}