Jerome Mesnager: "Ghosts of Paris"
The graceful human figures are produced by graffiti artist Jerome Mesnager. It is said that Mesnager's white figure emerged from a meditation on light. The consistently-rendered figures are read in the same way as a stencil, which at first I thought they were, but they are all drawn free-hand.
runner framed by blue shutters on rue Lafayette
His white spectral figures meander the streets of Paris at night, climbing, cavorting, dining, dancing, loving but leaving a distinctive imprint on doors and walls. I read an interview with Jerome Mesnager published in a recent copy of an avant-garde art periodical. When asked as to his methods of producing the elegant graffiti, he stated, "When I find the right door or wall, everything goes fast. I jump against the wall in the pose I want to represent and I paint very fast. It takes 26 seconds." Wow, I honestly would love to see that!
déjeuner sur l'herbe: manet/mesnager
It is said that Mesnager chooses his sites carefully and, like most Parisian wall artists, he finds that the oldest surfaces are the most inviting: the catacombs, ancient stone walls and derelict façades. I found the most beautiful reperesentations of love and humanity are in the most derelict of areas of Paris. I am sure that is the artist's plan.
ghosts dance over the façade on passage de la Duée
His white figures has been seen as far from Paris as the Great Wall of China and near the pyramids of Egypt. "The little white man wanders/He is a luminous ghost/He haunts deserted places" - from a 1989 poem by Mesnager.
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