Robin Decourcy

Combining activites as distinct as painting, performance, drawing, installation, dance and directing, Robin Decourcy's work cannot easily be defined by pulling the comforting string of the medium. Capable of travelling across Spain for several months with a donkey (in particular), installing a dense mass of dry brambles in the middle of a gallery, or introducing performance devices which touch on issues connected with a form of introspection, he tirelessly revels in his freedom to underpin an oeuvre whose challenges are situated beyond form. His painting itself seems to have understood that style is a limit, so it rejects the question of style and allows itself an open field of intervention.
More than the purely formal nature of the works, what creates a link in Robin Decourcy's work is to be found, first and foremost, in the relation (which we might describe as intimate) that the artist has with his subjects. The individual lies at the heart of his artistic research, be it through trauma, stereotype, commentary or identity; he is presented in all his complexity. So "unsaid things", "self-concern", personal history, and illusion all have a predominant place; these lines of research are connected with issues of displacement, flight and at times disappearance.