Interview: Guillaume Thunis
Luca Curci talks with Guillaume Thunis during CONTEMPORARY VENICE 2021 at Palazzo Albrizzi-Capello.

Through my drawings, I seek to express my relation to the world, and the quest for meaning that flows from it. When I draw, I reinvent my relationship with time. I often launch myself into creations that require extreme patience. I then practice a meditative drawing and lose the notion of time, or on the contrary, I regain control of it. It is an alternation of moments where I am fully awake and periods during which I am totally off-centered of myself. Yet, I draw the time that passes by. I nourish myself abundantly from nature, from images of the past and childhood memories. All these elements merge together until one day they give rise to an emotion, an intuition. Beyond the happiness I have in drawing, I want to create a true reflection about the relationship we have with the notion of time in our fast-paced societies. I want to create a space of freedom for the spectator, I seek to suspend time, to create silence.

Luca Curci – Which subject are you working on?
Guillaume Thunis – I work on the themes that fascinate me: time, the infinitely large and small. I am also quite obsessed with geometry and the relationship of things to others, contrasts, etc.

LC – How did you get to your current artistic practice?
GT – I often work on very detailed compositions. As I have always been fascinated by Japanese prints and calligraphy, I started to use a calame (bamboo stem used for calligraphy since antiquity) to make my little blue dots.

LC – Did your style change over the years? In which way?
GT – I am quite stable in my practice, and at the moment I almost always work on paper with inks or water-based paints. I prefer to explore a technique thoroughly than scattering myself over different techniques.

LC – Do you use art to express something in particular? Is it like your medium of expression?
GT – I believe that my drawings allow me to express something special that words cannot say. I also like to express myself through writing, but I believe that the two are complementary and express my perception of the world in different ways. I must say that the advantage of visual art is the immediate effect it has on the spectator’s senses.

LC – Can you explain something about the artworks you have in our exhibition?
GT – They are directly inspired by Chinese art in which bamboo is a central theme.

LC – What do you think about the concept of this festival? How did it inspire you?
GT – The theme of the organization of cities in the image of man speaks to me because it immediately refers to the acceleration of our rhythms of life, and therefore to temporality, which is a theme that interests me a lot. Also, the notion of the infinitely large in oversized cities, these millions of humans who are nothing more than numbers, anonymity, fascinates me.

LC – Did you enjoy cooperating with ITSLIQUID GROUP?
GT – It’s important to be able to exhibit during this difficult time, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to do it with you.