Serge Kantorowicz starts by studying etching, first in the city’s evening classes, then at the renown Lycée Saint Etienne des Arts Graphiques, and finally at the Ecole des Beaux Arts of Bruxelles. He acquires a solid traditional technical base that he immediately chooses to toss away when he joins the prestigious and more experimental Ateliers Maeght. During his years as an engraver he worked for many artists such as Miro, Giacometti, Vasarely, Riopelle, Joan Mitchell, Henri Michaux, and Calder; on the side he continues his own research.
In the mid seventies Kantorowicz decides to devote himself entirely to his own creation. He explores with delectation many visual arts media, often mixing them together to achieve a richer art form. From miniature oils to large formats, painted books to bronze sculptures, ink works to etchings on ceramics, all are for the sole purpose to satisfy his devouring creative passion.
Le Guen’s long love story with the US started in 1992, in the New York studio of Douglas Kolk. American artists inspire Le Guen with their visual rather than conceptual approach, and so does the street scene. He spray paints his letterisms and collages, stencils over them, and adds fluorescent paint, ink, or pieces of subway publicity posters, all techniques borrowed from the “Bad Painting” movement to which Jean-Michel Basquiat belonged
Although his paintings have a punk spirit, they are inhabited by dreamers with stars in their eyes, who walk with their heads upside down.
In his paintings and his sketches he plays with ebony-colored ink, between light and shadows, making visible his ghosts of intimacy, in an erotic and phantasmagoric dance. He also depicts deserted urban landscapes, and flashes of everyday life, at the bistrot, around a bedroom’s alcove, or at the artist’s studio. Color in contrast brings a joyful and liberating release.
The Storytellers
Literature plays a major role in the oeuvre of Kantorowiwz, who is an avid reader. Through his art, he constantly weaves links between himself and his favorite writers. The “book-object” becomes his canvas in an uninterrupted dialogue. He tears, scratches, draws, and paint over the pages to unearth the deepest meanings. The artist is in a quest to transcribe the emotions of the Word. Victor Hugo, who enflamed his youthful years, Balzac, Proust, but also the Polish avant-garde theatre director Tadeusz Kantor, Jacques Hadad, and many others are his life-journey companions.
In his pursuit of improvisation, Kantorowicz works today on the “Macula” or the art of the inkblot, based on the research of 18-century aquarellist, Alexander Cozens, he plays “ink games” to discover something that will surprise him.
